A coupling analysis between social consumption growth and road traffic flow trend based on vector autoregressive model

Abstract

There is a close relationship between the growth of consumption level and transportation development. To explore the interaction between social consumption growth and highway traffic development in China under the “dual circulation” development pattern and analyze the degree of influence and feedback mechanism between them. This study uses a vector autoregressive model to analyze the cyclical data of total retail sales of consumer goods and road traffic volume in China from 2010-2019. Results show that (i) there is a long-term interactive coupling relationship between the growth of total retail sales of consumer goods and the growth of highway traffic volume; (ii) there is a certain lag in the impact of the growth of highway traffic volume on the growth of total retail sales of consumer goods. In the early stage, the growth of total retail sales of consumer goods is mainly influenced by its own fluctuation, and the influence of transportation development is relatively small. In the long run, the improvement of transportation environment will stimulate economic growth. This study is useful to deepen the understanding of the relationship between China's increasing social consumption capacity and highway transport development in a “dual circulation” development pattern. Thus, the effectiveness of the inner cycle can be better exploited.