A GIS-based Study of The Impact of HSR Network Distribution on Firms' Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Listed Manufacturing Firms in China

Abstract

With the rapid development of the economy, enterprises are increasingly pursuing efficient division of labor and communication, and in order to achieve high-quality economic growth and sustainable development, high speed rail (HSR) has been born. Therefore, the study of the impact of HSR accessibility on the total factor productivity (TFP) of enterprises has become a hot topic of research in today's academia. In this paper, firstly, based on GIS network analysis, the routes and stations after opening are matched with the locations of enterprises to describe the spatial correlation between HSR and the locations of enterprises as well as the distribution of HSR among enterprises; secondly, a multi-period difference-in-difference model (DID) is utilized to study the impact of HSR opening on TFP of enterprises on the basis of the data of China's listed manufacturing enterprises in the period of 2000-2017; and The PSM-DID model to test the robustness of the empirical results; finally, the path of the impact of HSR on the TFP is explored. The empirical results are as follows: (1) The distribution of HSR and the location of listed enterprises are highly correlated in terms of geographic distribution information; (2) HSR has a significant impact on the TFP, and the impact effect is different in different periods; (3) HSR mainly affects the TFP of enterprises by using the innovative behavior of enterprises and industrial agglomeration as the mediating variables.