Transport Infrastructure and Economic Growth: Perspective from China’s Regional Disparities

This paper uses panel data of 28 China’s provinces,municipalities and autonomous regions from 1987—2007 to test on the impacts on economic growth of transport infrastructure.At the same time,to test on what is the role of transport infrastructure played in China’s regional disparity.Based on a Barro-typed growth model and growth decomposition,the empirical conclusion of this paper are following: Transport infrastructure has a significant positive impact on China’s economic growth;Different geography and transport infrastructure condition plays important roles in regional disparities;The western development program spurs the economic development of western regions convergent to that of the central and eastern region,of which,the accelerated development of transport infrastructure in western regions played an important role.