China’s bullet trains facilitate market integration and mitigate the cost of megacity growth.
Megacity growth in the developing world is fueled by a desire to access their large local labor markets. Growing megacities suffer from high levels of traffic congestion and pollution, which degrade local quality of life.
Transportation technology that allows individuals to access the megacity without living within its boundaries offers potentially large social benefits, because individuals can enjoy the benefits of urban agglomeration while not paying megacity real estate rents and suffering from the city’s social costs.
This paper presents evidence supporting the claim that China’s bullet trains are playing this role.
Comments
Post a Comment