Research On The Impact Of Transportation Infrastructure On Regional Economic Growth From The Perspective Of Spatial Equilibrium

Since the 21 st century,China has successively implemented regional development strategies aimed at narrowing the regional economic gap,such as the large-scale development of China’s western region,the revitalization of the old industrial bases in the northeast,and the rise of central region.At present,a coordinated regional development path with Chinese characteristics has been gradually explored.The regional coordinated development strategy is a long-term development strategy of China.Under the background of the new era,it is necessary to integrate the concept of high-quality development into the regional coordinated development strategy,promote the formation of a new pattern of regional high-quality coordinated development,and provide important support for building a socialist modern power in an all-round way.Throughout the economic development of China,the factor of transportation infrastructure can not be ignored.As an important carrier of the spatial flow of economic factors,transportation infrastructure has an important impact on the economic spatial pattern and regional economic growth.Especially,the improvement of transportation infrastructure brought by the continuous construction and opening of high-speed railway is a typical fact affecting economic development.At the same time,China’s population spatial distribution,industrial spatial agglomeration and technological innovation growth also show new changes.The evolution of economic spatial structure is facing new influencing factors and external environment.How to explain the spatial distribution and dynamic growth of economic activities under the influence of transportation infrastructure has become an important issue.Therefore,this paper mainly focuses on the following questions: how does transportation infrastructure affect regional economic growth,and what theoretical mechanism and channel exist between them? What impact does transportation infrastructure have on the spatial allocation of economic factors,and what impact will the spatial allocation of economic factors have on regional economic growth?Combined with the spatial differentiation phenomenon of China’s regional economic growth,how to explain the effect of transportation infrastructure and other factors on regional economic growth from the perspective of spatial equilibrium? What role does transportation infrastructure play in the regional "siphon effect",and can both economically developed and economically underdeveloped regions benefit from the improvement of transportation infrastructure conditions? In the context of regional coordinated development strategy,how to reduce regional economic growth differences through transportation infrastructure construction,and effectively guide the transfer and optimal allocation of economic factors and resources to reshape the economic spatial pattern? Based on this realistic background and problem orientation,this paper summarizes the relevant theories of new economic geography,combined with multi-disciplinary theoretical knowledge such as economics,mathematics and statistics,and comprehensively uses the methods of induction and deductive analysis,static and dynamic analysis,and the combination of theoretical and empirical analysis,according to the structure of " general-sub-general",this paper deeply studies the effects and channels of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth.The main contents of this paper are as follows:In the general part,this paper reviews the literature,defines the concept and draws lessons from the theory,and summarizes the modeling strategy of spatial equilibrium model based on the theory of new economic geography.At the same time,combined with the economic growth theory,this paper deeply analyzes the three main factors affecting economic growth(population,capital and technology),and closely combines the transportation infrastructure with population,capital and technology to further expand to the three levels of population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation.This paper clarifies the theoretical mechanism of the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth through population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation in spatial equilibrium,analyzes the space-time compression effect,economic agglomeration effect and knowledge spillover effect of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth,and constructs the theoretical framework of the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth from the perspective of spatial equilibrium.Based on this,this paper analyzes and judges the quantitative characteristics,evolution trend and regional differences of transportation infrastructure and economic growth from multiple dimensions,and reveals the development process,main achievements and existing problems of transportation infrastructure construction and regional economic growth.Then,based on the panel data related to expressway construction in 31 provinces of China from 2005 to 2019,this paper establishes a panel data model to test the relationship between expressway construction and regional economic growth,and effectively verifies the empirical fact that transportation infrastructure affects regional economic growth.In the sub-theory part,this paper adopts the combination of theoretical analysis and empirical test to explore the three channels of population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation that transportation infrastructure affects regional economic growth one by one.First,this paper constructs a two region,two factor and three sector spatial equilibrium model to explain the theoretical mechanism between transportation infrastructure,population flow and regional economic growth,and analyzes the impact of the change of trade freedom on population flow and regional economic growth under spatial equilibrium.Based on this,this paper empirically tests the effect relationship between transportation infrastructure,population mobility and regional economic growth by using the panel data of 284 cities in China from 2005 to 2019.Second,based on the three sector spatial equilibrium model,this paper further adjusts the theoretical model assumptions,deduces the evolution process of industrial spatial structure under different degrees of trade freedom,analyzes the changes of trade freedom and regional economic growth in the spatial equilibrium,and empirically tests the effect relationship between transportation infrastructure,industrial agglomeration and regional economic growth.Finally,this paper constructs a spatial equilibrium model including technological innovation departments,deduces the evolution process of technological innovation under different transportation costs,analyzes the changes of transportation costs and regional economic growth under spatial equilibrium,and reveals the theoretical mechanism between transportation infrastructure,technological innovation and regional economic growth.Then,this paper empirically analyzes the effect relationship between transportation infrastructure,technological innovation and regional economic growth.The conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,the construction process of China’s transportation infrastructure has been accelerating.The construction scale of both expressways and high-speed railways has shown a basic trend of rapid development.The gap in transportation infrastructure construction between regions is narrowing,which provides a solid transportation infrastructure guarantee for promoting regional economic growth.The scale and speed of China’s regional economic growth are relatively fast,showing the overall characteristics of "eastern region-central region-western region" and "coastal region-inland region" decreasing in turn in space.Among them,the economic growth in the eastern region is relatively fast,followed by that in the central and western regions,and the economic growth in the northeast region is the lowest,and the economic growth difference between the eastern region and the northeast,central and western regions is still in a growing development trend.The spatial structure distribution of China’s urban per capita GDP is roughly consistent with the "Hu Line".The difference in economic growth between cities in the eastern and western regions is still obvious.Cities with high per capita GDP are mainly concentrated in coastal cities in the eastern region,provincial capital cities in the central region and sub provincial cities.The transportation infrastructure conditions of such cities are generally good.Overall,transportation infrastructure has a significant positive impact on regional economic growth.Second,transportation infrastructure plays an important role in the evolution of spatial distribution of resource elements.Its "time-space compression effect" can effectively guide the flow of population to areas with high capital concentration level.The stable structure of population spatial distribution will experience three stages: symmetrical structure stable equilibrium,"core-periphery" structure stable equilibrium and asymmetric structure stable equilibrium.In the long-term spatial equilibrium,when the population gathers to a certain level,it will help to improve the share of regional economic growth,so as to promote regional economic growth.Transportation infrastructure can significantly promote the inflow of population in the eastern region,northeast region and central region,but it will accelerate the outflow of population in the western region,resulting in "corridor effect".Population flow can have a significant positive impact on regional economic growth in the eastern,northeast,central and western regions.The increase of population inflow can accumulate human capital for the region,and improve the efficiency of economic development through the technological innovation ability of human capital,so as to fully release the "demographic dividend" to promote regional economic growth.For the whole country,the eastern region,the northeast region and the central region,transportation infrastructure can promote regional economic growth by positively regulating population flow,but from the perspective of the western region,the negative regulation of transportation infrastructure on population flow will reduce the level of economic growth.Third,transportation infrastructure construction can strengthen the connection between regions and promote industrial agglomeration by guiding industrial capital cross regional investment.When the construction level of transportation infrastructure continues to improve and the transportation cost between regions gradually decreases,the stable structure of industrial spatial distribution successively goes through three stages: symmetrical structure stable equilibrium,asymmetric structure stable equilibrium and "core-periphery" structure stable equilibrium,then,the share of economic growth in the core region continues to increase,the share of economic growth in peripheral areas has been declining.The spatial equilibrium of regional economy presents a state of "core-periphery".Transportation infrastructure has a significant positive impact on industrial agglomeration,which can significantly improve the level of industrial agglomeration in the eastern region,northeast region and central region,but will inhibit the industrial agglomeration in the western region,so there is a certain "siphon effect".Whether in the whole country,eastern region,northeast region and central region,industrial agglomeration always has a very significant positive effect on regional economic growth,but industrial agglomeration in the western region has a negative effect on regional economic growth.For the whole country,eastern region and northeast region,transportation infrastructure can promote regional economic growth by regulating industrial agglomeration,but for the central region and western region,transportation infrastructure can not promote regional economic growth by regulating industrial agglomeration,which is mainly manifested in negative regulation effect.Fourth,the construction of transportation infrastructure can reduce the communication cost of information,knowledge and technology,and promote the diffusion of innovation elements from the central area to the peripheral areas.In the long-term spatial equilibrium,the improvement of transportation infrastructure conditions can improve the level of regional integration and promote the level of technological innovation in technologically backward areas through "knowledge spillover effect".Thus,technological innovation forms a "symmetrical equilibrium" spatial distribution structure among regions.Transportation infrastructure plays an important role in promoting regional technological innovation.Whether in the whole country or eastern region,northeast region,central region and western region,transportation infrastructure plays a significant positive role in promoting technological innovation.Technological innovation is the main power source of regional economic growth.For the whole country,the eastern region,northeast region,central region and western region,technological innovation has always had a very significant positive impact on regional economic growth.In general,the construction of transportation infrastructure can promote regional economic growth by regulating technological innovation.When a region becomes the center of technological innovation due to its high level of technological innovation,the more perfect the conditions of transportation infrastructure between regions,the more it can promote regional economic growth through "knowledge spillover effect".Finally,this paper summarizes the research contents and conclusions,and puts forward a series of policy suggestions on the effective supply of transportation infrastructure,the spatial allocation of economic factors and the sustainable development of regional economy.The innovations of this paper are as follows:First,this paper brings population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation into the theoretical analysis of the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth,establishes the theoretical framework system of the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth from the perspective of spatial equilibrium,and improves and expands the existing relevant research to a certain extent.Although the academic research on transportation infrastructure and economic growth has been relatively rich,most studies mainly discuss the relationship between transportation infrastructure and economic growth,population flow or industrial agglomeration from a single dimension,and research on the impact of transportation infrastructure on technological innovation has not formed a complete system.Few literatures bring technological innovation into the analysis category of transportation infrastructure and regional economic growth.Therefore,this paper closely combines transportation infrastructure with population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation to form a unified whole that is independent and interactive.This paper analyzes the three channels of population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation in which transportation infrastructure affects regional economic growth,and puts forward the time-space compression effect,economic agglomeration effect and knowledge spillover effect in the process of transportation infrastructure affecting regional economic growth.The establishment of this analytical framework helps to provide a relatively complete analytical paradigm and framework for the relevant research in the field of the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth,which highlights the academic value of the research.Second,based on the perspective of spatial equilibrium,using the methods of theoretical elaboration and mathematical model derivation,and based on the modeling principle of spatial equilibrium model,this paper constructs the spatial equilibrium models of transportation infrastructure affecting regional economic growth around the three channels of population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation.The new economic geography provides an effective modeling means for explaining the spatial distribution structure and change characteristics of economic activities.However,the literature on the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth based on the perspective of spatial equilibrium is not rich.Existing studies mainly use the spatial equilibrium model to analyze the impact of transportation infrastructure on industrial agglomeration from the perspective of the change of transportation cost.Therefore,inspired by the model of two regions,two elements and two departments in new economic geography,this paper puts the dynamic growth of economic activities in time dimension and the location distribution in space dimension into a unified framework for analysis.By constructing the spatial equilibrium model of two regions,two factors and three sectors,this paper explores on the basis of a relatively equal spatial condition from the perspective of spatial equilibrium,such as homogeneous regional type,the same factor endowment,location conditions,consumption sector,and production sector under the influence of transportation infrastructure,how can microeconomic main departments such as capital creation department and technological innovation department achieve the state of spatial "pareto efficiency" by optimizing the spatial allocation of their own disposable resource elements.Meanwhile,the establishment of spatial equilibrium model in this paper theoretically reveals the spatial configuration and structure characteristicss of specific research objects,such as population,industry,technology and economy in the spatial equilibrium,and depicts the dynamic mechanism of population flow,industrial distribution,technological evolution and economic growth,and reveals the differences and various possibilities of the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth.This paper theoretically provides a reasonable explanation for the spatial differentiation of China’s regional economic growth,and provides theoretical inspiration for an in-depth understanding of the theoretical mechanism of the impact of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth.Third,this paper uses a variety of empirical methods to study the specific action channels and impact effects of transportation infrastructure on regional economic growth.This paper also uses the least cost path spanning tree networks as an instrumental variable to verify the robustness of the relevant empirical results,which makes the paper have novel research conclusions and rich policy implications.Different from the previous studies using linear panel model to measure and estimate the marginal effect of transportation infrastructure on economic growth,this paper mainly studies two important transportation infrastructures such as expressways and high-speed railways,and the high-speed rail is regarded as a "quasi natural experiment".Based on the panel data of China’s cities in the latest year,combined with the multi-stage double difference model,this paper makes an empirical test on the population flow,industrial agglomeration and technological innovation channels of transportation infrastructure affecting regional economic growth in the eastern region,northeast region,central region and western region of China.The research enriches the empirical research on the relationship between transportation infrastructure and regional economic growth,and obtains some innovative and comparable empirical conclusions.At the same time,in the empirical research,this paper also effectively alleviates the self selection problem and endogenous problem of samples through a series of cutting-edge measurement methods such as feasible generalized least square method,system generalized method of moments method,PSM-DID method,instrumental variable method and placebo test,so as to verify the reliability and robustness of the empirical research conclusion of this paper.Thus,the causal effect can be estimated more reliably,which provides an empirical basis for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of China’s transportation infrastructure construction and the balanced and full development of regional economy.