The Spatial Spillover Effects of Transportation Infrastructure on Economic Development in China

Transportation infrastructure is considered as one of the important drivers of economic development particularly in the local province. However, the spatial spillover effects of transportation infrastructure of the local province on economic development in the neighbor provinces have not been well investigated in the related literature. The planning and construction of transportation infrastructure in a specific area or province can have not only the internal effects but also the spillover effects on the surrounding provinces and beyond, due to the network and mobility-facilitation features of the infrastructure’s service. Therefore, from a spatial perspective, this paper considers panel data of 31 provinces of China covering the period of 2003–2019 to study the existence, degree, and direction of the spatial transportation infrastructure on economic development in both local and neighbor provinces. Several spatial models are considered and the result shows that the Spatial Durbin Model is the best for investigating the spillover effects of transportation infrastructure on economic development. Our study findings reveal empirically the fixed investment in transportation infrastructure has a positive spillover effect, while the highway operating miles, freight turnover, and passenger turnover are all significantly responsible for the negative spillover effects on economic development of various local and neighbor provinces in China.