Has the opening of high-speed rail narrowed the inter-county economic gap? The perspective of China's state-designated poor counties

Abstract

This study used 2008–2017 panel data of 33 poor counties with high-speed rail (HSR) in China and 295 geographically adjacent non-poor counties without HSR, constructed a theoretical model of the impacts of HSR opening on the county economy from the perspective of state-designated poor counties, and empirically analyzed the impact of HSR opening on the inter-county economic gap using PSM-DID and other methods. The results showed the following: (1) The start of HSR might greatly decrease the inter-county economic gap and the results held after robustness and endogeneity tests; (2) the opening of HSR promoted the tertiary industry output in poor counties and further reduced the inter-county economic gap through them; and (3) increasing the fiscal budget revenue of poor counties will strengthen the impact of HSR opening on narrowing the inter-county economic gap, and the opening of HSR in the Eastern China with a better economic base can better contribute to narrowing the economic development gap between poor and non-poor counties.