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作者

来源

JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS,Vol.98,P.98-123

语言

英文

关键字

Transportation infrastructure; High speed railway; Urban employment and specialization; GROWTH; TRADE

作者单位

[Lin, Yatang] London Sch Econ & Polit Sci, CEP, Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE, England. Lin, YT (reprint author), London Sch Econ & Polit Sci, CEP, Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE, England. E-Mail: y.lin18@lse.ac.uk

摘要

How does intercity passenger transportation shape urban employment and specialization patterns? To shed light on this question I study China's High Speed Railway (HSR), an unprecedentedly large-scale network that connected 81 cities from 2003 to 2014 with trains running at speeds over 200 km/h. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that an HSR connection increases city-wide passenger flows by 10% and employment by 7%. To deal with the issues of endogenous railway placement and simultaneous public investments accompanying HSR connection, I examine the impact of a city's market access changes purely driven by the HSR connection of other cities. The estimates suggest that HSR-induced expansion in market access increases urban employment with an elasticity between 2 and 2.5. Further evidence on sectoral employment suggests that industries with a higher reliance on nonroutine cognitive skills benefit more from HSR-induced market access to other cities. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.