Understanding spatial spillover effects of airports on economic development: New evidence from China's hub airports

Many studies have been conducted to examine the direct effects of airports on local economic development, however, there is little solid evidence on spatial spillover effects and much less in the context of China's airport system. To fill this gap, this paper analyses the spatial spillover effects of China's main hub airports on economic development. Our results indicate that air passenger traffic, air cargo shipment, and flight frequency can induce more positive and larger spillover effects to all other neighboring cities connected through airport network contrast to the direct effects. With other things being equal, increasing flight frequency of existing air services has a greater impact on GDP compared with expanding air services to new destinations. This paper contributes to the literature by presenting new evidence on the spatial spillover effects of airports on economic development in Chinese cities.

Automated summary

Many studies have been conducted to examine the direct effects of airports on local economic development, however, there is little solid evidence on spatial spillover effects, especially in the context of China's airport system. This paper fills this gap by analyzing the spatial spillover effects of China's main hub airports on economic development, finding that increasing flight frequency of existing air services has a greater impact on GDP compared to expanding air services to new destinations. The study contributes to the literature by presenting new evidence on the spatial spillover effects of airports on economic development in Chinese cities.