交通基础设施改善与家庭旅游消费——来自“高铁县”的经验证据

Abstract

Scientifically evaluating the impact of improved transportation infrastructure on micro-level household welfare is of great practical significance. This paper matches the county-level high-speed railway (HSR) opening data from 2012 to 2018 with data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), and uses the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the impact of HSR opening on household tourism consumption. The study finds that the opening of county-level HSR significantly promotes the tourism behavior of local households. Compared with households in non-HSR counties, households in HSR counties have significantly higher average probability of tourism travel and tourism consumption amounts. The conclusions remain unchanged after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis finds that the driving effect of HSR opening on household tourism consumption is mainly realized through channels such as improving travel conditions, increasing the number of trips, expanding travel radius, and promoting household employment and income growth. Heterogeneity analysis shows that for households with more leisure time, the promotion effect of HSR opening on their tourism consumption is stronger, and HSR also promotes households' short-term pollution avoidance behavior. This paper studies the tourism economy development in the 'high-speed rail era' from a micro perspective, providing empirical evidence for further expanding domestic demand and boosting the domestic economic cycle.