On the Road to Prosperity? The Economic Geography of China’s National Expressway Network
Over the past two decades, China has embarked on an ambitious program of expressway network expansion. By facilitating market integration, this program aims both to promote efficiency at the national level and to contribute to the catch-up of laggi...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20101115151238 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3961 |
| Summary: | Over the past two decades, China has
embarked on an ambitious program of expressway network
expansion. By facilitating market integration, this program
aims both to promote efficiency at the national level and to
contribute to the catch-up of lagging inland regions with
prosperous Eastern ones. This paper evaluates the aggregate
and spatial economic impacts of China's newly
constructed National Expressway Network, focussing, in
particular, on its short-run impacts. To achieve this aim,
the authors adopt a counterfactual approach based on the
estimation and simulation of a structural "new economic
geography" model. Overall, they find that aggregate
Chinese real income was approximately 6 percent higher than
it would have been in 2007 had the expressway network not
been built. Although there is considerable heterogeneity in
the results, the authors do not find evidence of a
significant reduction in disparities across prefectural
level regions or of a reduction in urban-rural disparities.
If anything, the expressway network appears to have
reinforced existing patterns of spatial inequality,
although, over time, these will likely be reduced by
enhanced migration. |
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