Demographic Distributional Effect of High-Speed Railway: Evidence from Taiwan

摘要

Multiple recent studies suggested that accessibility to high-speed railway (HSR) substantially facilitated the economic development of large cities more than that of small cities in mainland China (Zhang and Tao, Economic Perspectives [Chinese], 2016; Qin, Journal of Economic Geography, 2017), Japan (Sasaki et al., Annals of Regional Science, 1997), South Korea (Kim, Cities, 2000), and Western Europe (Urefia et al., Cities, 2009; Monzon et al., Cities, 2013). However, most HSRs in those studies were built several decades ago before those affected regions became highly industrialized. Therefore, this paper applies econometric techniques to examine the demographic distributional effects exerted by Taiwan's HSR, which began to operate in 2007 after Taiwan became highly developed, to better understand the economic consequences of HSRs in small developed economies.