Towards a Low-Carbon Target: How the High-Speed Rail and Its Expansion Affects Industrial Concentration and Macroeconomic Conditions: Evidence from Chinese Urban Agglomerations
Minhua Yang,
Rui Yao,
Linkun Ma and
Ang Yang ()
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Minhua Yang: School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China
Rui Yao: School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China
Linkun Ma: School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China
Ang Yang: School of Maritime Economics and Management, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, China
Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 19, 1-18
Abstract:
High-speed rail is a high-standard railway system, which allows trains to operate at high speed. The railway play a crucial role in connecting urban agglomerations, which represents the highest form of spatial organization in the mature stage of urban development, bringing together cities of various natures, types, and scales in specific regions. This paper explores the impacts of high-speed rail and its expansion on industrial concentration and macroeconomic conditions in the period of 2000 to 2019. We use a well-known transportation policy as a natural experiment, utilizing geographic distance data to study the effects of high-speed rail and its expansion on industrial concentration and macroeconomic conditions in urban agglomerations. The results show that high-speed rail increases industrial concentration but leads to a reduction in macroeconomic conditions. Unlike previous studies in this field, we use distance variables to analyze how the expansion of high-speed rail affects macroeconomic conditions and industrial concentration through location advantages. The impacts of high-speed rails vary across urban and non-urban agglomeration cities, resource-based and non-resource-based cities, large and small cities, and eastern, central, and western regions. Our results are robust to the shocks from the global financial crisis, time lags, different distance dummy variables, dependent variables, and endogeneity issues. This study regards the opening up of high-speed rail as both improving air quality and reducing carbon emissions through substituting for urban and aviation transport. Compared to traditional transport methods such as urban and air travel, the efficiency and environmental benefits of high-speed rail make it an important method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, the expansion of high-speed rail could support both economic development and environmental concerns, and it is playing a crucial role in transportation selection for advancing low-carbon economic goals.
Keywords: high-speed rail; railway policy; urban agglomeration; distance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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