清末民初铁路建设对中国长期经济发展的影响

Impact of Railroad Construction in Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republican China on Long-term Economic Development

本文研究了清末民初铁路对中国长期经济发展的影响。我们首先在县级水平上将清末民初的历史信息和现代经济指标以及地理特征匹配整合起来,然后通过考察"相邻县组",比较了铁路通过县与其邻县长期经济发展水平的差异。回归结果表明:铁路通过县的经济发展水平要显著高于邻县约20%。我们进一步研究了产生差异的影响渠道,发现:有铁路通过的地区城市化和工业化进程更快,能吸引更多的外商资本,同时教育水平和企业的生产效率也更高。

This paper investigates the long-term effect of railroads established in Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republican China on regional economic development.We first combine the county-level historical data with contemporary economic and geographic features.Then we compare the economic performance of counties passed by railroads with their contiguous areas.Our regression results show that GDP per capita of counties with railways are significantly higher than their contiguous areas by20%.We further explore possible channels and find that counties with access to railroads enjoy higher level of urbanization and industrialization,attract more foreign direct investment,and have higher level of education and firms' productivity.