Roads, Railroads, and Decentralization of Chinese Cities

Baum-Snow, Nathaniel; Brandt, Loren; Henderson, J. Vernon; Turner, Matthew A.; Zhang, Qinghua

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00660

Cited by 473 publications

(256 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The evidence on the impact on the spatial distribution of economic activity is more mixed. Within metropolitan areas radial connections tend to facilitate suburbanization and, thus, benefit peripheral areas (Baum-Snow, 2007;Baum-Snow et al, 2012). 6 However, there is also evidence that within larger regions reductions in trade costs between regions due to better road networks favor core regions at the expense of peripheral regions (Faber, 2014).…”

Section: Introduction "A Major New High-speed Rail Line Will Generatementioning

confidence: 99%

From periphery to core: measuring agglomeration effects using high-speed rail

Ahlfeldt

Feddersen

2017

Journal of Economic Geography

263

137

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We analyze the economic impact of the German high-speed rail (HSR) connecting Cologne and Frankfurt, which provides plausibly exogenous variation in access to surrounding economic mass. We find a causal effect of about 8.5% on average of the HSR on the GDP of three counties with intermediate stops. We make further use of the variation in bilateral transport costs between all counties in our study area induced by the HSR to identify the strength and spatial scope of agglomeration forces. Our most careful estimate points to an elasticity of output with respect to market potential of 12.5%. The strength of the spillover declines by 50% ever 30 minutes of travel time, diminishing to 1% after about 200 minutes. Our results further imply an elasticity of per-worker output with respect to economic density of 3.8%, although the effects seem driven by worker and firm selection.

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Section: Introduction "A Major New High-speed Rail Line Will Generatementioning

confidence: 99%

From periphery to core: measuring agglomeration effects using high-speed rail

Ahlfeldt

Feddersen

2017

Journal of Economic Geography

263

137

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“…Ongoing work focuses on the e ects of transportation infrastructure on city population decentralization (Baum-Snow et al, 2015) and on incomes (Banerjee et al, 2012;Faber, 2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

Geographic determinants of China's urbanization

Christensen

McCord

2016

Regional Science and Urban Economics

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This study exploits a unique set of satellite and other spatially explicit data to examine the role of three exogenous geographic factors in shaping and constraining urbanization: biophysical land suitability for agriculture, distance to major ports and terrain slope. The setting is China in the 1990's, the most expansive process of urban growth in history. Our empirical results suggest that these geographical factors explain nearly half of the variation in urbanization levels. However, controlling for long-run levels, we nd a weakly negative relationship between agricultural land suitability and urban expansion from 1990-2000, which is consistent with the theoretical expectations that rising opportunity costs a ect the development of fertile lands. We examine heterogeneity in the e ects of geography using interactions with province xed e ects and, even more exibly, with a localized regression technique (geographically weighted regression). Our results indicate that agricultural land suitability has opposing e ects in di erent regions, for example leading to increased urban expansion in the Pearl River Delta and restricting urban expansion along the northern coast. These results should caution scholars against assuming homogeneous e ects of physical geography across regions when doing empirical analysis of urban dynamics.

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“…There is ample evidence in the developed world that transport infrastructure has caused the decentralisation of the population at the city level (Baum-Snow, 2007;Brueckner, 2000) as well as of jobs (Baum-Snow, 2010). This has also been the case for China (Baum-Snow, Brandt, Henderson, Turner, & Zhang, 2015). Using a panel of 138 cities around the world, Gonzalez-Navarro and Turner (2014) confirm the role played by subways in decentralisation.…”

Section: Designing Sustainable Transport Policiesmentioning

confidence: 80%