Opening high-speed railway’s influence on high-quality economy in China’s counties

Abstract

Improving county economy is the key to realize high-quality economy and “dual carbon” target for developing countries like China where county economy has been weak. The aim of this study is to investigate influencing factors on high-quality economy from a novel perspective of opening high-speed railway (HSR). We apply panel data with time span from 2006 to 2018 and sample area in 396 counties in the upstream Yangtze River of China. As for methodology, we perform entropy weight method (EWM) to estimate the high-quality economy and multi-period Propensity Score Matching (PSM)-difference in difference (DID) methods for empirical analysis. Our results demonstrate that 1). Implementing HSR remarkably promotes high-quality economy at county level, which is stable after a series of verification and confirms our hypothesis 1. We also solve endogeneity by combining PSM-DID with instrumental variable method IV) and Generalized Method of Moment (GMM). 2). Further heterogeneity analysis reveals that opening HSR positively accelerates high-quality economy of counties above average, which proves our hypothesis 2. 3) Our impact mechanism analysis reveals that adjusting industrial structure is main channel, which also confirms our hypothesis 3. Accordingly, the findings provide policy implications: Firstly, a mechanism should be developed to facilitate implementing HSR by strengthening fiscal support from central government, attracting financial institutions with market mechanisms and optimizing spatial layout. Secondly, it is crucial to facilitate horizontal cooperation by hearings or joint meetings and facilitating horizontal financial transfer payments. Lastly, adjusting industrial structure needs to accelerate green industries, while transforming heavily polluted industries.