Connective Financing: Chinese Infrastructure Projects and the Diffusion of Economic Activity in Developing Countries.

Autoren

• Bluhm
• R.
• Dreher
• A
• Fuchs
• A.
• Parks
• B. C.
• Strange
• A. M.
• Tierney
• M. J.

Erscheinungsdatum

DOI

10.1016/j.jue.2024.103730

JEL Classification

Schlagworte

Mehr zum Thema

This paper studies the causal effect of transport infrastructure on the spatial distribution of economic activity within subnational regions across a large number of developing countries. To do so, we introduce a new global dataset of geolocated Chinese grant- and loan-financed development projects from 2000 to 2014 and combine it with measures of spatial concentration based on remotely sensed data. We find that Chinese-financed transportation projects decentralize economic activity within regions, as measured by a spatial Gini coefficient, by 2.2 percentage points. The treatment effects are particularly strong in regions that are less developed, more urbanized, and located closer to cities.

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