Empirical study of the spatial spillover effect of transportation infrastructure on green total factor productivity

Abstract

Transportation infrastructure promotes the regional flow of production. The construction and use of transportation infrastructure have a crucial effect on climate change, the sustainable development of the economy, and Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP). Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2017, this study empirically analyses the spatial spillover effect of transportation infrastructure on the GTFP using the Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index and the dynamic spatial Durbin model. We found that transportation infrastructure has direct and spatial spillover effects on the growth of GTFP; highway density and railway density have significant positive spatial spillover effects, and especially-obvious immediate and lagging spatial spillover effects in the short-term. We also note that the passenger density and freight density of transportation infrastructure account for a relatively small contribution to the regional GTFP. Considering environmental pollution, energy consumption, and the enriching of the traffic infrastructure index system, we used the dynamic spatial Durbin model to study the spatial spillover effects of transportation infrastructure on GTFP.