The impact of high-speed rails on urban economy: An investigation using night lighting data of Chinese cities

In order to promote economic growth and coordinated regional development, the Chinese government has built and operated more than 25,000 km of high-speed rail. Local governments have made a huge investment in high-speed rail construction, aiming to promot economic agglomeration around stations by compressing spatial distance, and produce a spillover effect on the local economy. However, it still needs to test whether high-speed rail construction can change the development fate of these cities. In this paper, the economic impact of high-speed rail opening on these cities was examined by considering cities along China's “four vertical and four horizontal” high-speed rail lines as observation objects and using “night lighting data,” key economic indicators, and the difference-in-difference model with matching method. The following findings were obtained in our study. First, high-speed rail opening failed to promote the economic growth of cities along high-speed rails in the short term, but accelerated the economic diffusion of cities along high-speed rails over time. Second, high-speed rail opening had a significant impact on the industrial structure of cities along high-speed rails, increased the proportion of the tertiary industry and reduced the proportion of the secondary industry. Third, high-speed rail construction exerted a greater influence on the economic development level of big cities and had no significant impact on the economic development level of small and medium-sized cities along the high-speed rails. In the robustness test, consistent results were obtained by replacing the economic growth measurement methods, changing the time breakpoint and conducting a counterfactual test.