How Does Improved Investment Access Inspire Entrepreneurship? Evidence from Infrastructure Construction in China

The rapid development of infrastructure construction has profoundly affected the flow and allocation of production factors, exerting a significant influence on regional economic patterns. Existing research does not support the assertion that high-speed railways activate regional entrepreneurial vitality from an investment—access perspective. Based on the cross-regional investment data of listed companies in 270 Chinese cities, firm registration data, and China’s high-speed rail (HSR) network data from 2004 to 2022, we examined how improved investment access promotes entrepreneurial vitality. These findings suggest that the development of high-speed rail networks encouraged listed companies to expand their cross-regional investment portfolios and improved investment access to cities, which, in turn, increased the number of startups. The conclusions remain unchanged after using the instrumental variables and a series of robustness tests. Heterogeneity analyses suggest that cities with similar cultural backgrounds were more favorable for expanding cross-regional investments when HSR networks improve. Simultaneously, for regions with low initial entrepreneurial vitality, improving investment accessibility was more conducive to increasing entrepreneurial vitality. This study provides new ideas for activating entrepreneurial vitality from an investment access perspective and provides empirical evidence that transportation infrastructure enhances entrepreneurship.