Has the transport-led economic growth effect reached a peak in China? A panel threshold regression approach

Using China's province-level panel data from 1987 to 2010, this study explores the optimal level of transport infrastructure accumulation maximizing the growth rate. The authors investigate under what circumstances can additional transportation infrastructure capacity positively affect economic growth, based on panel threshold regression models. Their empirical findings suggest that there is a non-monotonic relationship between the stock of transport infrastructure and the long-run growth rate. The magnitude of transport-led economic growth effect significantly depends on the level of the existing transport network. The empirical results identify two endogenous cut-off points of efficiency of transport-led economic growth effect. When the highway network density is lower than 0.17 km/km2, an insignificant positive relationship between highway infrastructure accumulation and economic growth was found. When the highway density is estimated between 0.17 and 0.38 km/km2 or higher than 0.38 km/km2, expanding the highway network has a significant positive effect on economic growth, but the magnitude of the impact is weaker in the latter, with the estimated coefficients equal to 0.23 and 0.09 respectively. Although China still enjoys a positive economic growth effect led by building more large-scale highway infrastructure, the magnitude of the effects of most provinces in China has already passed the saturation point and continuously expanding the highway network is not very productive.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-013-9503-4
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00494488
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.
• Authors:
  • Deng, Taotao
  • Shao, Shuai
  • Yang, Lili
  • Zhang, Xueliang
• Publication Date: 2014-5

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 567-587
• Serial:
  • Transportation
  • Volume: 41
  • Issue Number: 3
  • Publisher: Springer
  • ISSN: 0049-4488
  • EISSN: 1572-9435
  • Serial URL: http://link.springer.com/journal/11116

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Economic growth; Highways; Infrastructure; Networks; Regression analysis
• Geographic Terms: China
• Subject Areas: Economics; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I10: Economics and Administration; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01529089
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 26 2014 9:31AM