Impact of transportation hubs on urban economic resilience: Evidence from national comprehensive transportation hub cities

Yongpei Wang, Zhenyu Xu and Jia Liang

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2026, vol. 203, issue C

Abstract: The connectivity of infrastructure is regarded as an important foundation for resisting external economic shocks. Taking the construction of comprehensive transportation hubs in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper uses a multi-period difference-in-differences model to evaluate the impact of this policy on enhancing urban economic resilience. The empirical study based on the unbalanced panel data of China’s prefecture-level cities covering the period 2000–2023 finds that transportation hubs play a significant role in enhancing urban economic resilience. The robustness of this net effect is further verified through multiple tests such as the parallel trend assumption, heterogeneous treatment effects, and placebo tests, as well as panel data at the county and company levels. Mechanism analysis indicates that the channels of this effect mainly include cost reduction, agglomeration effect, incentives for innovation and entrepreneurship, and urban spatial optimization. In addition, the effect of enhancing economic resilience is more significant in large cities with a population of over 3 million, cities with a high degree of economic agglomeration, and cities with a relatively low level of urban sprawl. This provides useful insights for subsequent policies.

Keywords: Transportation hub; Economic resilience; Agglomeration; Urban sprawl (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2025.104751

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