High-speed rail (HSR) is often claimed to bring different regions and cities closer together by shortening travel times, which can reduce the costs and increase enterprises productivity to promote a sustainable economy. However, another view argues that HSR transfers economic activities from peripheral cities to core cities, resulting in unbalanced regional economic development and damaging the sustainability of the economy. Based on microdata from China, this paper empirically investigates the impact of HSR on the enterprises productivity in both core cities and peripheral cities and explores the impact mechanism from the perspective of allocation effect and distribution effect caused by HSR. The results show that the connection of HSR positively affects the enterprises productivity in core cities, while it negatively affects the enterprises productivity in peripheral cities, with effect values of 1.38% and -8.45%, respectively. The conclusion still holds after endogenous treatment and multiple robustness tests are conducted. Additionally, the allocation effect analysis shows that the market access caused by HSR has an optimization effect on the resource allocation efficiency of both core cities and peripheral cities. The distribution effect analysis reveals that the distribution of enterprise productivity in peripheral cities has market heterogeneity, regional heterogeneity, and location heterogeneity. The important policy significance of this paper is that, in order to promote the sustainable development of enterprises and the economy, it should reduce policy restrictions and promote the effective flow of capital and talents, carry out the dislocation development of industry for peripheral cities, and “build a nest to attract the phoenix.”

This research uses a two-way fixed effect model to examine the correlation between the development of high-speed rail and the growth of green technology innovation by adopting the panel data of 284 Chinese cities between 2004 and 2013. The empirical results show that the supply of high-speed rail services has a significant promoting influence on the advance of urban green technology innovation capabilities. In particular, cities located in central and western China, along with those cities with relatively little government support or relatively backward public cultural infrastructure, have more chances to benefit from the supply of high-speed rail services. In addition, by employing a mediating effect model, this article finds that the industrial collaborative agglomeration plays an important mediating role between high-speed rail and regional green technology innovation. Therefore, this article suggests that the Chinese central government should continue to accelerate the construction of the rapid transportation network and expand the coverage of high-speed rail services in China to increase the growth of green technology innovation and achieve steady and sustained economic growth in China. Meanwhile, local governments should actively guide the collaborative agglomeration of manufacturing and related producer service industries under local conditions to stimulate the expansion of the green technology innovation market.

Transport enables trade between people, which is essential for the development of civilizations. Transport is a crucial necessity for specialization, allowing production and consumption of products to occur at different locations. High-speed rail (HSR) allows the flow of people between regions, cities, countries. With rapid global development in HSR technology for passenger transportation, it plays a vital role in transportation systems. The improvement of the quality of cities with different emphasis will bring different economic development results. Therefore, exploring the impact of high-speed railways and quality of place on economic development is necessary. This paper takes the prefecture-level city with a high-speed railway opened in 2008–2013 as the research sample and takes other prefecture-level cities in the country as the control group. The study findings revealed that employment, investment in fixed assets, average wage, and higher education institute significantly affect China’s regional economic growth. Institute of higher education reflects the negative effect on the regional economic growth whereas the employment, investment in fixed assets, and average wage rate positively impact it. Based on the results, it can be concluded that China’s regional economy is significantly affected by its quality.

With the advent of the “ear of high-speed railways”, the space–time distance between cities has drastically decreased. The opening of high-speed railways has not only increased the factor-flow speed across regions, but has also reduced the cost of factor movement. However, there is some controversy about whether high-speed railways can be used to promote regional economic growth. The Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway is the earliest section of the Beijing–Guangzhou high-speed railway, and it was the first high-speed railway in China with a real speed of 350 km per hour. The Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway opening spawned a three-hour economic circle in the south of China, injected new vitality into the economic and social development along the line, and had an important impact on accelerating regional economic interoperability and integration. Taking this into account, this paper took the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway as the case study. Firstly, this paper used the theory of system dynamics to analyze the mechanism of the impact of high-speed railway opening on regional economic growth. Secondly, the accessibility model was used to analyze the impact of the high-speed railway opening on the accessibility of cities along the line, and a difference-in-differences model (DID) was used to explore the impact of the high-speed railway opening on regional economic growth. Finally, on the basis of the analysis of the previous mechanism, the mechanism of the impact of the high-speed railway on regional economic growth is discussed. The results of this study show the following: (1) Since the opening of the high-speed railway, the accessibility of cities along the line has grown by more than 60%. (2) The opening of the high-speed railway has promoted regional economic growth, mainly through the influence mechanism of “increasing the total cargo volume”. This study not only scientifically and quantitatively analyzed the impact of the opening of high-speed rail on regional economic growth, taking the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway as an example for empirical analysis, but also further summarized the high-speed railway construction achievements in China and provides reference experience for planning the opening of high-speed railways.

Using the panel data of 263 prefecture-level cities in China, this article explores the development of green technology innovation under the influence of intra-city industrial collaborative agglomeration and inter-city network connectivity. Regression results prove that both of them can enhance green technology innovation. However, further heterogeneity tests suggest that the promoting power of industrial collaborative agglomeration is only significant in the eastern, central and medium-level cities. Meanwhile, there is a significant negative moderating correlation between industrial collaborative agglomeration and network connectivity. This negative moderating effect is particularly significant in the eastern, high and low-level cities.

Although the special economic zones (SEZs) are considered the backbone of rapid economic development in China, it is unclear whether they contribute to green economic development. From the perspective of the localized industrial chains formed as a result of the SEZ policy, this paper aims to analyze and explain how the development of SEZs influences carbon emissions in Chinese cities by promoting green technologies’ vertical spillover along the industrial chain. Based on the panel data of 264 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2016 and a relatively new and mostly disaggregated city-level MRIO (multi-region input–output) table in China, this paper constructs green technology vertical spillover as a mechanism variable and discusses the influence theoretically and empirically. The results show that the development of SEZs can reduce a city’s carbon emissions. More specifically, for every 10 m² increase in the size of the SEZ area, the carbon dioxide emission can be reduced by 0.882 g per m² of the city area. Moreover, mechanism analysis shows that the development of SEZs promotes green technology vertical spillover inside the city, through which the SEZs reduce the city’s carbon emissions. The mediation effect occupies 21.96% of the total effect. Furthermore, the impact of the development of SEZs on carbon emissions has regional heterogeneity due to the city’s industry structure, green technology stocks, and the zones’ administrative hierarchies. The finding of this study could provide several important implications for regional green development, especially in China.