Has the opening of high-speed rail narrowed the inter-county economic gap? The perspective of China's state-designated poor counties

Ming Chen, Xiucai Liu, Xiancheng Xiong and Jiao Wu

International Review of Economics & Finance, 2023, vol. 88, issue C, 1-13

Abstract: This study used 2008–2017 panel data of 33 poor counties with high-speed rail (HSR) in China and 295 geographically adjacent non-poor counties without HSR, constructed a theoretical model of the impacts of HSR opening on the county economy from the perspective of state-designated poor counties, and empirically analyzed the impact of HSR opening on the inter-county economic gap using PSM-DID and other methods. The results showed the following: (1) The start of HSR might greatly decrease the inter-county economic gap and the results held after robustness and endogeneity tests; (2) the opening of HSR promoted the tertiary industry output in poor counties and further reduced the inter-county economic gap through them; and (3) increasing the fiscal budget revenue of poor counties will strengthen the impact of HSR opening on narrowing the inter-county economic gap, and the opening of HSR in the Eastern China with a better economic base can better contribute to narrowing the economic development gap between poor and non-poor counties.

Keywords: Opening of high-speed rail; State-designated poor counties; County economy; Inter-county economic gap; Multi-period difference-in-differences method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reveco:v:88:y:2023:i:c:p:1-13

DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2023.05.004

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