Operation of high-speed rail and reduction of corporate pollution: evidence from China

The impact of high-speed rail on SO2 emissions-based on spatial difference-in-differences analysis

SO2 emissions have brought serious hidden danger to human health and environmental quality, thus hindering sustainable economic development. The development of high-speed rail indirectly has an important impact on SO2 emissions through its economic effects. Controlling SO2 emissions from the source has increasingly become the focus of many scholars, and it is very important to assess the environmental effects of high-speed rail on SO2 emissions reduction. We use the panel data of 285 cities in China from 2007 to 2017, and adopt the spatial Difference-in-Differences model to study the impact of the opening of high-speed rail on SO2 emissions. We also introduce an improved spatial DID model that distinguishes neighboring treatment groups and neighboring control groups to test the spatial spillover effect of high-speed rail on neighboring heterogeneous samples. We find that the opening of high-speed rail significantly reduces the city's SO2 emissions through the internal accumulation effect of technological innovation and industrial structure optimization and the urban external interaction mechanism of the cross-regional flow of production factors. Moreover, the spatial spillover effect of the opening of high-speed rail on neighboring cities is significantly positive, especially the spatial spillover effect of HSR on SO2 emissions from neighboring cities without HSR. In addition, heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect varies with the different cities' tiers and income levels. These findings are conducive to accurately assessing the environmental effects of high-speed rail, and provide important policy references for achieving sustainable development and reducing SO2 emissions.

Analysis of the Green Development Effects of High-Speed Railways Based on Eco-Efficiency: Evidence from Multisource Remote Sensing and Statistical Data of Urban Agglomerations in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River, China

As part of the modern transport infrastructure, high-speed railways (HSRs) have been considered an important factor affecting eco-efficiency (EE). This study used multisource remote sensing and statistical data from 185 counties representing urban agglomerations in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (UAMRYR) in China from 2009 to 2018. The study integrated ArcGIS analysis, the Super-SBM (super slack-based measure) model, and the DSPDM (dynamic spatial panel Durbin model) to explore the spatial effects of HSRs on EE. The results showed that the coordinates of the interannual centers of gravity for EE and HSRs both fell in the same county, possessing similar parameter values for the standard deviation elliptical, a negative spatial mismatch index, and obvious spatial mismatch characteristics. In different spatially dislocated areas, the spatial effects of HSRs on EE are variable. Overall, the short-term effects are more intense than the long-term effects, and both the long-term and short-term effects are dominated by the effects of spatial spillover. A new perspective is proposed to explore the green development effects of HSRs, with a view to providing policy implications for the enhancement of EE and the planning of HSRs.