Can high-speed railway promote regional market integration? Evidence from China

The rapid development of high-speed railways is an important manifestation of transportation modernization in China, and has a huge influence on the integration of China's regional market. The predominance of passenger transport in China's high-speed rail (HSR) network makes it difficult to explain the influence of HSR on regional market integration issues in the previous research paradigm of economic geography based on the iceberg costs theory. Therefore, this paper constructs a conceptual framework of HSR affecting regional market integration in terms of market access, information flow, and substitution transportation. It also empirically tests the HSR effect of market integration using prefecture-level data from 2003 to 2013 in China. The results show that HSR has a significantly positive effect on China's regional market integration, and the three influencing mechanisms exist. However, the influence of HSR on regional market integration is different due to the heterogeneity of economic development and population scale.