The impact of high-speed railway on urban housing prices in China: A network accessibility perspective

Applying the social network analysis (SNA) approach, this paper investigates the impact of highspeed rail (HSR) on urban housing prices from the perspective of network accessibility. Based on a sample of 285 cities in China over 2009-2017, we find a positive effect of HSR network accessibility on urban housing prices. An increase in HSR network accessibility (i.e., degree point or closeness centrality) by one standard deviation causes about a 10.3% increase in average housing prices. Evidence also suggests that this effect varies across regions and housing types. Our results are robust to different model specifications and alternative measures of HSR accessibility. The findings offer insights into the space-time economic laws with important policy implications regarding spatial disparities and regional economic convergence in China.