Transportation Infrastructure and Economic Growth in China: A Meta-analysis
Transportation infrastructure has experienced a rapid development in China over the past decade. Although the economic contribution of transportation infrastructure has been widely examined in the literature using various data and approaches, the understa
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Abstract Transportation infrastructure has experienced a rapid development in China over the past decade. Although the economic contribution of transportation infrastructure has been widely examined in the literature using various data and approaches, the understanding remains unsatisfactory as the economic output elasticities for transportation are found to vary substantially across different studies. Our study improves the understanding of the linkages between transportation infrastructure and economic growth with a focus on China using a meta-analysis. Through a statistical analysis of 133 estimates from 18 empirical studies, our results find that the average output elasticity of the Chinese transportation system is 0.13. Variations in earlier estimates were found to be due to the different dependent variables, transportation variables, control variables, data, and models being used. Although the results are generally consistent with previous studies based on different survey samples, some unique characteristics of the Chinese economy and its transportation system are found to play a significant role. These should be considered carefully and suggest interpretive cautious in future research endeavors. Keywords Transportation infrastructure • Economic growth • China • Metaanalysis
Z. Chen () Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, 322RTH, 3710 McClintock Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA e-mail: [email protected] K.E. Haynes School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs, George Mason University, 3351 Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017 H. Shibusawa et al. (eds.), Socioeconomic Environmental Policies and Evaluations in Regional Science, New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives 24, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0099-7_18
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3,000 Rail
Road
Public Transit
Water
Air
Pipeline
2,500 Unit: Billions of 2013 Yuan
2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Fig. 1 New added infrastructure by mode in China (Source: the National Bureau of Statisics)
1 Introduction Transportation infrastructures in China have experienced unprecedented evolution in the last decade due to strong government support of public infrastructure investment. As illustrated in Fig. 1, transportation infrastructures, such as road, rail, and public transit, experienced rapid development during the period 2003– 2013. The average growth rate of infrastructure investment was 18 %. Each year, approximately $200 billion of government funds were allocated for the development of various transportation infrastructures, such as highways, high-speed rail, urban metro systems, and airports. Such an ambitious investment in transportation infrastructure has fundamentally changed the Chinese economy and society. On one hand, the improved accessibility of freight and passenger mobility facilitated regional trade flows and increased the allocative efficiency of factor
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