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The impact and mechanism of high-speed rail on energy efficiency: an empirical analysis based on 285 cities of China

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Abstract

Improving energy efficiency is an important measure of environmental governance. At present, studies on the impact of high-speed rail on energy efficiency need to be further studied. This paper constructs panel data of 285 cities at prefecture-level and above in China from 2003 to 2017, and uses the difference-in-difference (DID) to study the impact of high-speed railway on urban energy efficiency. Based on the theories of “factor flow,” “knowledge spillover,” and “center-periphery,” this paper discusses the influence mechanism and heterogeneity of high-speed railway on energy efficiency. The empirical results show that high-speed railway can significantly improve energy efficiency, and the conclusion is still valid after parallel trend test, propensity score matching and difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) test, and instrumental variable method. The results remained true after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis shows that high-speed railway can improve energy efficiency by promoting industrial structure upgrading, technological innovation, and market integration. Analysis of heterogeneity shows that the promotion effect of high-speed railway on energy efficiency is greater in central and western cities and core cities. This study provides useful enlightenment for optimizing China’s high-speed rail construction planning and seizing the opportunity of high-speed rail development to improve energy efficiency.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Notes

  1. Approximate calculation process is as follows. The De-mean method proposed by Parsley and Wei (2001a, 2001b) was adopted to remove fixed effects related to commodity characteristics. Then obtain the relative price of the city portfolio, subtract the mean, calculate the relative variation of variance, take the average, and take the reciprocal. Limited by space, the specific calculation process is not shown. If necessary, please contact the corresponding author.

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Funding

Work on this paper was supported by a grant from the Jiangxi University Humanities and Social Science Research Project (Grant No.JJ21107) and Jinggangshan University Doctoral Research Project (Grant No. JRB2201).

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Author notes

  1. Xuehui Yang and Yan Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business, Jinggangshan University, Ji’an, 343009, Jiangxi, China

    Xuehui Yang

  2. Graduate School, University of Perpetual Help System DALTA, 1740, Las Pinas, Philippines

    Yan Li

  3. Yongfeng County Party School, Ji’an, 343009, Jiangxi, China

    Yan Li

  4. School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Le Liao

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  1. Xuehui Yang
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  2. Yan Li
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  3. Le Liao
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Contributions

Xuehui Yang: conceptualization, methodology, funding acquisition, writing — original draft. Yan Li: formal analysis, methodology, writing — review and editing. Le Liao: software, supervision, writing — review and editing.

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Correspondence to Le Liao.

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Yang, X., Li, Y. & Liao, L. The impact and mechanism of high-speed rail on energy efficiency: an empirical analysis based on 285 cities of China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 23155–23172 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23838-4

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