Does Airport Preferential Policy Aggravate the Competition of Aviation Hubs in Central and Western China? Based on the Investigation of 78 Airports

Chengyu Li,Yanbing Zhang,Guangliang Zhou,Ning Xu,Jin Chen,Xiangwu Yan,Lin Zhou

doi:10.1155/2021/8387088

Abstract

China’s regional economic competition is intensifying; in particular, the cluster development of air transport, high-end manufacturing, and modern service industries is closely related to the construction of regional airports. Local governments have listed aviation hubs as the hardcore advantage of high-quality growth in the new era, but it may also lead to excessive convergence and preferential system competition. Based on the “GDP competition” of local governments in China, this paper uses panel data of 78 airports in mainland China from 2001 to 2018 and tries to explore the causes of airport preferential policies. The Synthetic Control Method is used to study the influence of preferential policies on airport passenger and cargo flow, and then the Spatial Durbin Model is used to verify the spatial spillover effect of aviation hubs, which may be magnified by the preferential policies. This paper finds that the impact of preferential policies on airports in central and western China is mainly reflected in the increase of cargo throughput, and there is a spatial siphon effect on cargo throughput between airports. The implementation of the preferential policy enhances this spatial siphon effect, which in turn leads to more fierce competition. The research results show that the preferential policies, issued in central and western aviation economy, have shown a trend of evolving in the direction of vicious competition. Before the airport preferential system produces more negative effects, it should be corrected in time, and each aviation economic zone in the central and western regions should be scientifically coordinated and reasonably planned.

Highlights

In recent years, many aviation hub cities in central and western China have put forward plans to speed up the construction of airport economic zones or aviation metropolises, and various governments have issued various preferential policies to support the construction of airports and routes
E passenger and cargo throughput of the Xinzheng Airport in Zhengzhou shown in Table 3is similar to that of synthetic areas. e RMSPE of freight volume and passenger flow is less than 0.1, and the predictive control variables, such as lngdp, gov, lnpop, and sec, are very close to the real level. e airport development index of the synthetic area, in 2001 and 2006, is highly similar to that of the experimental area, which can prove that the fitting effect of the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) method is appropriate
From the previous analysis of the SCM, it is concluded that the preferential policy implemented by Zhengzhou to the aviation economic zone is reflected in the increase of airport cargo, which shows that the current competition focus on airports in central and western China lies in cargo volume

Summary

Introduction

Many aviation hub cities in central and western China have put forward plans to speed up the construction of airport economic zones or aviation metropolises, and various governments have issued various preferential policies to support the construction of airports and routes. Some studies have confirmed that if regional government subsidies are stopped, almost all German airports will not be able to make up for their annual losses [4] Another point of view is that we should pay attention to the direct loss or profit of regional airports while ignoring their promoted effect on the regional economy. E conclusion of this paper has important practical significance for rationally planning the aviation economic zone in the central and western regions, exploring the differentiated development, and smoothing the domestic and international double circulation strategy through the aviation industry. The SCM is used to analyze the impact of preferential policies on aviation economic zones. en, the spatial spillover effect of the aviation economy is studied by using SDM, and the realization path of preferential policy is studied. e fifth part further discusses the reasons for the emergence of the preferential system. e last part reviews the previous content and puts forward some suggestions on the influence of aviation economic preferential policy

Literature Review

Model Setting

Empirical Results and Discussion

Main Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

Disclosure