Transportation infrastructure, economic agglomeration and non-linearities of green total factor productivity growth in China: Evidence from partially linear functional coefficient model

• Published in: Transport policy Vol. 129; pp. 1 - 13
• Main Authors: Tan, Ruipeng, Pan, Lulu, Xu, Mengmeng, He, Xinju
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2022
• Subjects: Economic agglomeration; Green total factor productivity; Heterogeneous impacts; Non-linearity; Transportation infrastructure; Transportation infrastructure; Economic agglomeration; Green total factor productivity; Non-linearity; Heterogeneous impacts
• ISSN: 0967-070X; 1879-310X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2022.09.027

Previous studies have not clarified how transportation infrastructure will affect green total factor productivity. In this paper, we examine the impact of transportation infrastructure on green total factor productivity in Chinese cities with varying levels of economic agglomeration. We find that when the degree of economic agglomeration is relatively low, the effect of transportation infrastructure on green total factor productivity change is not obvious, but with a higher degree of agglomeration, this effect becomes evident. We thus recommend that the construction of transportation infrastructure may help the government achieve its goal of green and sustainable transformation, but the degree of economic agglomeration should be increased to beyond the critical level in order to make the impact of transportation infrastructure beneficial. •Heterogeneous impacts of transportation infrastructure on GTFP are investigated.•Positive externalities of transportation infrastructure can be emerged only when the economic agglomeration exceeds the critical value.•Parametric and nonparametric techniques are both adopted to avoid model misspecification.