| Summary: | China–Europe freight train (CEFT) is a link connecting Eurasia and a vital carrier to promote regional economic cooperation. This article measures the quality of China’s city-level economic growth using principal component analysis. Our study examines the impact of the opening of CEFT on the quality of urban economic growth by using the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model and the data of 273 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2016. First, the basic results show that the opening of the CEFT significantly improves the quality of the economic development of node cities, which remains robust under a series of robustness tests. Second, the heterogeneity test shows that CEFT is more conducive to improving the quality of economic growth in inland cities and cities with small freight volumes in central and western China. There is no significant difference in the impact of road infrastructure construction in different level cities. Third, the mechanism test shows that the opening of the CEFT has a significant impact on improving the quality of economic growth, with no positive effect on stability and sustainability. The construction of the CEFT is still under development. It is necessary to take complete account of the situation of different cities in scientific planning, improve its driving effect on stability and sustainability while maintaining efficiency, and then, optimize the economic benefits of the freight train.
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