Impact of China Europe Railway Express operation on green total factor productivity and spatial spillover effect in Chinese cities

Yan Li, Cong Wang, Xinxin Xia and Qingbo Huang

Transport Policy, 2025, vol. 172, issue C

Abstract: Green total factor productivity (GTFP) is a core indicator for measuring high-quality urban development, and improving urban GTFP is key to enhancing the quality and sustainability of urban development. As an important channel for trade between China, Central Asia, and Europe, the opening and operation of the China Europe Railway Express (CRE) have significantly impacted China's urban development. This study focuses on the impact of the opening of the CRE on the GTFP of node cities. Using data from 274 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2020, the multiperiod difference-in-difference (DID) method and spatial DID method are used to investigate the impact of regularly operated node cities after the opening of CRE on urban GTFP. We use all operated node cities (including regularly and not regularly operations cities) and not regularly operated node cities as control group. The results reveal that, the regularly operated node cities of CRE has significantly promoted the GTFP of Chinese cities, but heterogeneity exists in city type, city size, and region. From a spatial perspective,the regularly operated node cities have a siphon effect on surrounding cities, but no effect on adjacent cities. Notably, the siphon effect extends in 700 km, and competition with other cities emerges between 800 km and 1200 km. Mechanism analysis reveals that urban foreign trade and industrial agglomeration (IA) within cities can improve the GTFP of node cities through the moderating effect of CRE. However, IA itself has an inhibitory effect on urban GTFP. Our results reveal the impact of CRE's operation on the GTFP of Chinese cities and provide some suggestions for cities that will be opening the CRE to improve their GTFP.

Keywords: China Europe railway express; Green total factor productivity; Difference-in-differences (DID); Spatial spillover effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2025.103763

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