IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0289866.html

Impact of regional accessibility on urban residents’ income in China: A bidirectional-fixed panel model

Author

Listed:
  • Yahong Liu
  • Daisheng Tang
  • Fengyu Wang
  • Naila Bano

Abstract

The income gap between regions and its expansion are the main manifestations of the imbalanced and inadequate economic development in China. High-speed railway (HSR) construction is regarded as an important method to drive domestic demand, drive the pulse of the economy, and promote the coordinated development of regions. Based on the opening of HSR and the acceleration of ordinary railways, we used the weighted average travel time model and accessibility coefficient to estimate the changes on accessibility in 286 cities at prefecture-level and above from 2000 to 2018. Then, the influence mechanisms of improving regional accessibility on urban residents’ income were estimated by using the bidirectional-fixed effects panel model and the recursive model respectively. We found that: (1) The accessibility of urban areas has been greatly improved due to the opening of HSR and the acceleration of ordinary railway, among which the improvement of HSR cities is greater. (2) The improvement of regional accessibility significantly promoted the income growth of urban residents, and the increase of the regional accessibility coefficient by 1 unit led to an average increase of 2140 yuan in the per capita disposable income of urban residents. (3) There is regional heterogeneity in the impact of improving regional accessibility on urban residents’ income, and it has a significant effect on the eastern and northeastern regions. It has a greater positive effect on improving the income of residents in central cities compared with peripheral cities. (4) Regional accessibility can promote urban income growth through regional employment and fixed asset investment. In the future, the transportation network should be further improved to facilitate the regional economic cycle, strengthen the coordination and complementarity of regional economies, and promote regional economic integration so as to promote the improvement of resident income level and the common prosperity of the people.

Suggested Citation

  • Yahong Liu & Daisheng Tang & Fengyu Wang & Naila Bano, 2023. "Impact of regional accessibility on urban residents’ income in China: A bidirectional-fixed panel model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(10), pages 1-19, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0289866
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289866
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289866
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289866&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0289866?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2004. "Volume and Quality of Infrastructure and the Distribution of Income: An Empirical Investigation," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 50(1), pages 87-106, March.
    2. Dave Donaldson & Richard Hornbeck, 2016. "Railroads and American Economic Growth: A "Market Access" Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 799-858.
    3. Roger Vickerman, 2007. "Recent Evolution of Research into the Wider Economic Benefits of Transport Infrastructure Investments," OECD/ITF Joint Transport Research Centre Discussion Papers 2007/9, OECD Publishing.
    4. Jeffrey P. Cohen & Catherine J. Morrison Paul, 2004. "Public Infrastructure Investment, Interstate Spatial Spillovers, and Manufacturing Costs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 551-560, May.
    5. Nathaniel Baum-Snow, 2010. "Changes in Transportation Infrastructure and Commuting Patterns in US Metropolitan Areas, 1960-2000," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 378-382, May.
    6. Kim, Hyojin & Sultana, Selima, 2015. "The impacts of high-speed rail extensions on accessibility and spatial equity changes in South Korea from 2004 to 2018," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 48-61.
    7. James Jixian Wang & Jiang Xu & Jianfeng He, 2013. "Spatial Impacts of High-Speed Railways in China: A Total-Travel-Time Approach," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(9), pages 2261-2280, September.
    8. Anping Chen & Nicolaas Groenewold, 2011. "Regional Equality and National Development in China: Is There a Trade‐Off?," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 628-669, December.
    9. Piyapong Jiwattanakulpaisarn & Robert B. Noland & Daniel J. Graham & John W. Polak, 2009. "Highway infrastructure and state‐level employment: A causal spatial analysis," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(1), pages 133-159, March.
    10. Quheng Deng & Shi Li, 2009. "What Lies behind Rising Earnings Inequality in Urban China? Regression-based Decompositions," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 55(3-4), pages 598-623.
    11. Melanie Arntz, 2010. "What Attracts Human Capital? Understanding the Skill Composition of Interregional Job Matches in Germany," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 423-441.
    12. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gibbons, Stephen & Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Overman, Henry G. & Sanchis-Guarner, Rosa, 2019. "New road infrastructure: The effects on firms," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 35-50.
    2. Rosa Sanchis-Guarner, 2012. "Driving Up Wages: The Effects of Road Construction in Great Britain," SERC Discussion Papers 0120, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Zhenhua Chen & Kingsley Haynes, 2015. "Multilevel assessment of public transportation infrastructure: a spatial econometric computable general equilibrium approach," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(3), pages 663-685, May.
    4. Cucu, Florin, 2025. "Roads, internal migration and the spatial sorting of U.S. high-skill workers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    5. Rosa Sanchis-Guarner & Nikodem Szumilo & Antoine Vernet, 2024. "Startup stations: The impact of rail access on entrepreneurship (self-employment) in England and Wales," Working Papers 2024/11, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    6. Zhenhua Chen & Kingsley E. Haynes, 2015. "Regional Impact of Public Transportation Infrastructure," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 29(3), pages 275-291, August.
    7. Yanyan Gao & Xinping Wang, 2023. "Chinese agriculture in the age of high‐speed rail: Effects on agricultural value added and food output," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 387-405, March.
    8. Yu Jia & Yunqian Wang & Piao Li & Shuang Gao, 2024. "Economic Communication: The Influence of High-Speed Rail on Urban-Rural Income Inequality in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 47-73, August.
    9. Yahong Liu & Daisheng Tang & Tao Bu & Xinyuan Wang, 2022. "The spatial employment effect of high-speed railway: quasi-natural experimental evidence from China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 69(2), pages 333-359, October.
    10. Liu, Zhongmei & Zhu, A-Xing & Zhang, Wenxin & Ren, Mei, 2021. "An improved potential-based approach to measuring the daily accessibility of HSR," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 271-284.
    11. Jiwattanakulpaisarn, Piyapong & Noland, Robert B. & Graham, Daniel J., 2010. "Causal linkages between highways and sector-level employment," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 265-280, May.
    12. Zunaira Khadim & Irem Batool & Muhammad Bilal Lodhi, 2021. "China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, Logistics Developments and Economic Growth in Pakistan," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-15, June.
    13. Konno, Akio & Kato, Hironori & Takeuchi, Wataru & Kiguchi, Riku, 2021. "Global evidence on productivity effects of road infrastructure incorporating spatial spillover effects," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 167-182.
    14. Shujie Yao & Jing Fang & Hongbo He, 2020. "Can Time–Space Compression Promote Urban Economic Growth? Evidence from China's High‐speed Rail Projects," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(5), pages 90-117, September.
    15. Kim, Hyojin & Sultana, Selima & Weber, Joe, 2018. "A geographic assessment of the economic development impact of Korean high-speed rail stations," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 127-137.
    16. Zhenhua Chen & Kingsley E. Haynes, 2015. "Public surface transportation and regional output: A spatial panel approach," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(4), pages 727-751, November.
    17. Xin Liu & Pingping Luo & Madhab Rijal & Maochuan Hu & Khai Lin Chong, 2024. "Spatial Spillover Effects of Urban Agglomeration on Road Network with Industrial Co-Agglomeration," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-28, December.
    18. Piyapong Jiwattanakulpaisarn & Robert B. Noland & Daniel J. Graham, 2012. "Marginal Productivity of Expanding Highway Capacity," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 46(3), pages 333-347, September.
    19. Di Cataldo, Marco & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2016. "What drives employment growth and social inclusion in EU regions?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11551, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    20. Li, Chunying & Zhang, Jinning & Lyu, Yanwei, 2022. "Does the opening of China railway express promote urban total factor productivity? New evidence based on SDID and SDDD model," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0289866. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.