Economic Growth Effect of Nuclear Power Plants on Location Cities Based on Counterfactual Analysis with Prefecture-Level Panel Data of Mainland China

Whether the local economy can benefit from nuclear power plants will not only influence policymakers’ decision, but also the residents’ attitude. It is of great practical and academic value to scientifically evaluate and accurately measure the impact of nuclear power plants on the local economy. Based on the panel data of 287 prefecture-level cities in mainland China from 1998 to 2017, the HCW model was employed to construct the counterfactuals of the per capita real GDP of four cities where the four newly-put-into-commercial-operation nuclear power plants were located after the global financial crisis. We measured the promotion effect of nuclear power plants on the economic growth of the localities and found that the nuclear power plants as a whole have improved the per capita real GDP of the localities. From the time dimension, the nuclear power plants as a whole have a rising effect of 1963.65 yuan on per capita real GDP per year; from an individual perspective, each nuclear power plant can increase the per capita real GDP per year by 1415.67 yuan. For the location where the per capita real GDP is low, the nuclear power plant has a stronger economic growth effect; for the location where the per capita real GDP is high, the economic growth effect of the nuclear power plant is relatively weak, and may even have an inhibitory effect. Governments should choose the relatively less-developed cities as the possible alternative ones to achieve the maximal acceleration effect on local economic growth and harvest the greatest support of local residents. Governments should also make efforts to keep the continuity and succession in time of different sub-projects to ensure the local economy can enjoy a sustainable boosting.