High-speed railway and regional economic growth: a case of Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway

The development course of high-speed railway indicates that it not only changes the composition of traffic modes when competing with other modes of transportation, but also plays an important role in spurring the economic growth of the cities along the line and the evolution of regional spatial structure. Taking Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway as an example, this paper constructs the first-level panel data of the cities along the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway and its surrounding cities from 2007 to 2016, and uses the difference-in-differences estimation to study the impact of high-speed rail opening on economic development. The research results show that it has significantly jump-started the economy of cities along the line. The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway will become a crucial axis for regional economic development along the Beijing-Shanghai railway, as it has remarkably advanced the economic development of the cities along the route.