High-speed rail, economic agglomeration and urban innovation —— Analysis of Chinese evidence

ABSTRACT By adjusting the spatial and temporal distance between small and medium-sized cities and provincial capital cities, high-speed rail has reshaped the distribution of innovation resources, and eventually significantly affected China’s economy. Employing data from 284 Chinese prefecture-level cities for the period of 2005 to 2015, this paper uses the propensity score matching model (PSM-DID) to analyze the relationship between the high-speed rail opening and urban innovation in China. Our empirical results show that: 1) the opening of high-speed rail significantly improves the overall level of urban innovation in China, but affected by “the distance from provincial capital” which present a “∽”-type structural feature 2) the mechanism of the effect of high-speed rail on urban innovation is mainly to promote economic agglomeration; and 3) the impact of high-speed rail opening on urban innovation has gradually declined characteristics based on opening time and regional economy heterogeneity.