Transport Infrastructure, Urban Growth and Market Access in China

Abstract

This paper quantifies the causal effects of various types of investments in the road and railroad networks on economic growth in Chinese cities and regions. It separates out the influences of changes in access to markets that have come through better inter-regional and international transport links from the more direct effects of transport infrastructure on city level productivity, which may operate through various channels. By separately considering effects of transportation on city and regional growth, the study makes progress in separating out the extent to which improved transport infrastructure promotes aggregate growth versus redistribution of economic activity. Critical to the evaluation is the use of pseudo-random variation in the allocation of transport networks to cities and their surrounding regions This work is part of the Research on Growth and Urbanisation in Low Income Countries programme