The impact of high-speed rail on high-quality development of enterprises: Evidence from China's listed enterprises

This study investigates the impact of high-speed rail opening on the quality development of Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2022 by using a difference-in-differences (DID) based on panel data. Through the robustness test and parallel trend test, the results of the study show that the opening of high-speed railway significantly promotes the high-quality development of firms. The opening of high-speed railway significantly improves the economic quality of enterprises by improving the quality of information disclosure of enterprises, promoting innovation of enterprises, reducing market distortions, alleviating information asymmetry, and easing financing constraints. From the heterogeneity analysis, the opening of high-speed rail has no significant effect on the quality development of technology-intensive industries, capital-intensive industries and state-owned enterprises, and highly competitive industries, but it has a significant effect on labor-intensive industries, non-state-owned enterprises, and low-competitive industries. This paper extends the study of the economic impact of high-speed rail construction to the micro-firm level, providing valuable insights into the planning and spatial distribution of high-speed rail infrastructure.