Influential analysis of smart transportation policy on common prosperity using casual mediation effect inference

Nowadays, China is advancing the smart transportation policy which was initially implemented in 2018. It aims at leveraging advantages of transportation infrastructures as a pillar industry to drive high-quality economic development, as well as common prosperity. In this context, this work focuses on effect mechanism investigation of smart transportation policy on common prosperity. Using the data collected from 31 provinces of China mainland, systematic empirical analysis is conducted using casual mediation effect inference. The main results demonstrate that implementation of smart transportation policy enhances regional common prosperity by 2.8%. It comprises a direct effect of 1.2% and a cumulative indirect effect of 1.6%. The indirect effect is a chain-mediated transmission mechanism from primary distribution to secondary and tertiary distributions. The mediation effect accounts for 57.14% of the total effect. In addition, the coefficient of the “social sharing index” in common prosperity (2.8%) is greater than the coefficient of the “development index” (2.4%). This indicates that effect of smart transportation policy on social sharing is significantly stronger than that on economic development. Accordingly, five aspects of policy recommendations are put forward from results, in order to maximize supporting role of smart transportation on common prosperity. This paper innovatively constructs a three-layer chain intermediary mechanism theory from the perspective of economic development and social sharing. It provides theoretical support and practical path for smart transportation system to drive common prosperity, and provides a new paradigm of transportation governance for cracking the regional imbalance.