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作者

来源

REGIONAL SCIENCE AND URBAN ECONOMICS,Vol.65,P.116-126

语言

英文

关键字

Road infrastructure; Productivity; China; INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM; ECONOMIC-GROWTH; TRADE; IMPACT

作者单位

[Li, Zhigang] Asian Dev Bank, Mandaluyong, Philippines. [Wu, Mingqin] South China Normal Univ, Sch Econ & Management, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Peoples R China. [Chen, Bin R.] Sun Yat Sen Univ, Business Sch, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Peoples R China. Wu, MQ (reprint author), South China Normal Univ, Sch Econ & Management, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Peoples R China. E-Mail: mingqinwu@163.com

摘要

China's road investment boom since 1990 has often been criticized as excessive. In this paper, we estimate the return to road investment in China due to manufacturing firms' increased productivity between 1998 and 2007. To address endogeneity in road investment, we estimate the differential impact of road investment on firms with heterogeneous reliance on transport. Although some investment may be inefficient, our finding does not support the claim that road investment in China is excessive overall. The annual rate of return from productivity gains alone amounts to approximately 11%, partly due to positive spatial spillover. We find little return to road investment in inland China around 2000, but this has significantly improved since the mid-2000s. Our findings are robust to controlling for road quality, railroad investment, and variant markups of firms due to market demand and price shocks.