Does High-Speed Railway Promote High-Quality Development of Enterprises? Evidence from China’s Listed Companies

Yongling Li, Junxian Yang (), Weiqiang Zhang, Zhou Zhou () and Jianhui Cong
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Yongling Li: School of Economics and Management, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
Junxian Yang: School of Economics and Management, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
Weiqiang Zhang: School of Business and Economics, Free University of Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Zhou Zhou: School of Economics and Management, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
Jianhui Cong: School of Economics and Management, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 18, 1-33

Abstract: The high-quality development of enterprises is the micro-foundation of China’s economic growth model from “speed and scale” to “quality and efficiency,” in which China’s transportation infrastructure, especially the high-speed railways (HSRs), plays an indispensable role. We select the propensity score matching and difference in difference (PSM-DID) model as the identification strategy and empirically analyze the impact of the HSR on the high-quality development of enterprises based on empirical data of 1331 A-share listed companies in China. The results show that the HSR has a significant positive impact on the high-quality development of enterprises. This effect is more substantial for enterprises in the Pearl River Delta, the Triangle of Central China, and small and medium-sized cities. The HSR inhibited the high-quality development of enterprises in the mining, culture, sports, and entertainment industries in eastern and central China. The reason is the restriction of the ability to create social and environmental value and the influence of monopolistic competition. The HSR improves labor mobility, capital expansion, and knowledge spillovers, thereby promoting the high-quality development of enterprises. However, new infrastructure mainly improves the high-quality development of enterprises by promoting knowledge spillovers and technological innovation. This paper contributes to the modernization of China’s HSR network and provides essential insights for the HSR to achieve sustainable development goals.

Keywords: high-speed railways; high-quality development of enterprise; difference in difference; labor mobility effect; capital widening effect; knowledge spillover effect; technological innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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