IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/11212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rural Roads and Local Economic Development in China

Author

Listed:
  • Han, Yajie
  • Pkhikidze, Nino
  • Qin, Yu
  • Yang, Yi

Abstract

Rural roads, serving as vital links between remote areas and economic centers, play an indispensable role in rural development. This paper investigates the relationship between rural road development and various economic outcomes in China from 2008 to 2021. Based on comprehensive novel road network data, satellite nighttime light images, county-level statistics, and household-level survey data, analyses are conducted at multiple levels. At the grid level, the findings show a consistent positive correlation between rural road mileage and nighttime light intensity, suggesting that road development fosters the growth of economic activity. The correlation is more pronounced in plains than in mountainous areas and is stronger for roads of higher quality. Economic prosperity and population size further enhance the economic benefits of rural roads. Additionally, the analysis finds significant links between rural road development and key metrics such as population growth, agricultural production, and the income and consumption of rural households.

Suggested Citation

  • Han, Yajie & Pkhikidze, Nino & Qin, Yu & Yang, Yi, 2025. "Rural Roads and Local Economic Development in China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11212, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099740509082562012/pdf/IDU-86855c83-7601-4b19-bd61-2b9b1476d974.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ren Mu & Dominique van de Walle, 2011. "Rural Roads and Local Market Development in Vietnam," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 709-734.
    2. Dave Donaldson, 2018. "Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 899-934, April.
    3. Benjamin Faber, 2014. "Trade Integration, Market Size, and Industrialization: Evidence from China's National Trunk Highway System," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(3), pages 1046-1070.
    4. Yanyan Gao & Shunfeng Song & Jun Sun & Leizhen Zang, 2020. "Does high‐speed rail connection really promote local economy? Evidence from China’s Yangtze River Delta," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 316-338, February.
    5. Clive Bell & Susanne van Dillen, 2014. "How Does India’s Rural Roads Program Affect the Grassroots? Findings from a Survey in Upland Orissa," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(2), pages 372-394.
    6. Gebresilasse, Mesay, 2023. "Rural roads, agricultural extension, and productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    7. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther & Qian, Nancy, 2020. "On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    8. Dave Donaldson & Adam Storeygard, 2016. "The View from Above: Applications of Satellite Data in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 171-198, Fall.
    9. Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2016. "Paving Streets for the Poor: Experimental Analysis of Infrastructure Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 254-267, May.
    10. Stefan Dercon & Daniel O. Gilligan & John Hoddinott & Tassew Woldehanna, 2009. "The Impact of Agricultural Extension and Roads on Poverty and Consumption Growth in Fifteen Ethiopian Villages," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1007-1021.
    11. Qin, Yu & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2016. "The Road to Specialization in Agricultural Production: Evidence from Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-16.
    12. Aggarwal, Shilpa, 2018. "Do rural roads create pathways out of poverty? Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 375-395.
    13. Shohei Nakamura & Tom Bundervoet & Mohammed Nuru, 2020. "Rural Roads, Poverty, and Resilience: Evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(10), pages 1838-1855, October.
    14. Tasso Adamopoulos, 2011. "Transportation Costs, Agricultural Productivity, And Cross‐Country Income Differences," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(2), pages 489-521, May.
    15. Jacoby, Hanan C, 2000. "Access to Markets and the Benefits of Rural Roads," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 713-737, July.
    16. Doll, Christopher N.H. & Muller, Jan-Peter & Morley, Jeremy G., 2006. "Mapping regional economic activity from night-time light satellite imagery," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 75-92, April.
    17. Ejaz Ghani & Arti Grover Goswami & William R. Kerr, 2016. "Highway to Success: The Impact of the Golden Quadrilateral Project for the Location and Performance of Indian Manufacturing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(591), pages 317-357, March.
    18. Lin, Yatang, 2017. "Travel costs and urban specialization patterns: Evidence from China’s high speed railway system," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 98-123.
    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. Pkhikidze,Nino, 2024. "Connectivity, Road Quality, and Jobs : Evidence from Armenia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10847, The World Bank.
    2. Djemaï, Elodie & Clark, Andrew E. & D’Ambrosio, Conchita, 2024. "Take the Highway? Paved roads and well-being in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    3. Aparajita Dasgupta & Devvrat Raghav, 2024. "Rural Roads, Climate Change, and the Dynamics of Structural Transformation: Evidence from India," Working Papers 122, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    4. Hao Fan & Jingjing Wang & Qian Xu, 2025. "Traffic infrastructure and dietary quality improvement: Evidence from Chinese expressway," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 17(4), pages 863-881, August.
    5. Gertler, Paul J. & Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco & Gračner, Tadeja & Rothenberg, Alexander D., 2024. "Road maintenance and local economic development: Evidence from Indonesia’s highways," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    6. Chakrabarti, Sandip, 2025. "Rural roads and economic development: Insights from India," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 305-318.
    7. Bird, Julia & Straub, Stéphane, 2020. "The Brasília experiment: The heterogeneous impact of road access on spatial development in Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    8. He, Guojun & Xie, Yang & Zhang, Bing, 2020. "Expressways, GDP, and the environment: The case of China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    9. TANAKA,Kiyoyasu, 2024. "From Walking to Driving: Economic Impact of Mountain Roads," IDE Discussion Papers 949, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    10. repec:cdl:agrebk:qt8mg7z5kt is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:cdl:agrebk:qt38m633q0 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Aggarwal, Shilpa, 2018. "Do rural roads create pathways out of poverty? Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 375-395.
    13. Das, Abhiman & Ghani, Ejaz & Grover, Arti & Kerr, William & Nanda, Ramana, 2024. "JUE insight: Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India’s GQ highway network," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    14. Yanyan Gao & Yongqing Nan & Shunfeng Song, 2022. "High‐speed rail and city tourism: Evidence from Tencent migration big data on two Chinese golden weeks," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 1012-1036, September.
    15. Howell, Anthony, 2025. "Corrigendum to “Rural road stimulus and the role of matching mandates on economic recovery in China” [J. Dev. Econ. 166, (January 2024), 103211]," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    16. Suchi Kapoor Malhotra & Howard White & Nina Ashley O. Dela Cruz & Ashrita Saran & John Eyers & Denny John & Ella Beveridge & Nina Blöndal, 2021. "Studies of the effectiveness of transport sector interventions in low‐ and middle‐income countries: An evidence and gap map," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), December.
    17. Romano, Patrícia Ribeiro & Bezerra Sampaio, Raquel Menezes, 2023. "Road concessions: Evidence of the effects of improving the transport infrastructure on economic development in Brazil," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 115-124.
    18. Xie, Lin & Wang, Shaozhuang & Yan, Lingxiao, 2024. "Distributional effects of expressway access on rural entrepreneurial activities in China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    19. Claudia N. Berg & Uwe Deichmann & Yishen Liu & Harris Selod, 2017. "Transport Policies and Development," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(4), pages 465-480, April.
    20. Kumar Gautam, Santosh & Ilirjani, Ermal & Ukil, Patralekha, 2025. "On the Road to Better Life? Rural Road and Economic Development in Albania," IZA Discussion Papers 18116, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Forhad Shilpi & M Shahe Emran & Brian Blankespoor & Harold Coulombe, 2024. "Temporary trade shocks and regional development: evidence from the closure of Abidjan port," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 333-352.
    22. Baek, Jisun & Park, WooRam, 2022. "The impact of improved passenger transport system on manufacturing plant productivity," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wbk:wbrwps:11212. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    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.