Journal Article
Connective Financing: Chinese Infrastructure Projects and the Diffusion of Economic Activity in Developing Countries.
Journal of Urban Economics, 145:103730
Authors
Publication Date
DOI
JEL Classification
F35
R11
R12
P33
O18
O19
Key Words
Related Topics
China
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.
