The Impact of High-Speed Railway on China’s Regional Economic Growth Based on the Perspective of Regional Heterogeneity of Quality of Place

Abstract

Transport enables trade between people, which is essential for the development of civilizations. Transport is a crucial necessity for specialization, allowing production and consumption of products to occur at different locations. High-speed rail (HSR) allows the flow of people between regions, cities, countries. With rapid global development in HSR technology for passenger transportation, it plays a vital role in transportation systems. The improvement of the quality of cities with different emphasis will bring different economic development results. Therefore, exploring the impact of high-speed railways and quality of place on economic development is necessary. This paper takes the prefecture-level city with a high-speed railway opened in 2008–2013 as the research sample and takes other prefecture-level cities in the country as the control group. The study findings revealed that employment, investment in fixed assets, average wage, and higher education institute significantly affect China’s regional economic growth. Institute of higher education reflects the negative effect on the regional economic growth whereas the employment, investment in fixed assets, and average wage rate positively impact it. Based on the results, it can be concluded that China’s regional economy is significantly affected by its quality.