Spatial Spillover Effects of Chinese Transport Infrastructure on Regional Economic Growth

Based on the methods of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis, this paper proves that the spatial clustering trend and positive spatial autocorrelation on Chinese regional economic development are significant from 2003 to 2017. According to 31 provincial data in 2003, 2010 and 2017, we conduct an empirical study concerning the spatial spillover effects of transport infrastructure on regional economic growth. The result shows that the capital and labor still make the largest contributions to the regional economic growth. The human capital, government expenditure, trade openness and the transport infrastructure play a more and more important positive role in promoting the economic development. Moreover, the direct effects of transport infrastructure on regional economic growth still account for the vast majority of the whole effects. A positive spatial spillover effect significantly exists and without considering the spatial spillover effects will overestimate the direct effects of transport infrastructure on economic growth.