An empirical study on air transport promoting the coordinated regional economic development: A perspective of spatial interaction

Coordinated Regional Economic Development (CRED) is a core pillar of China’s new development philosophy, and the role of civil aviation in advancing CRED has garnered increasing policy and academic attention. CRED is a multidimensional construct encompassing static development equilibrium, dynamic growth convergence, and spatial economic linkage. Examining how air transport shapes CRED, including its causal effects and underlying mechanisms, is critical to defining the strategic role of aviation in regional development policy and generating evidence-based policy insights. Guided by a theory-driven analytical framework, we empirically test our research hypotheses using a 2008–2024 panel dataset of region-pairs across China’s seven major civil aviation regions. Our econometric models yield four core findings. First, air transport has a significant positive causal effect on CRED. This result holds after addressing endogeneity via instrumental variable estimation and a battery of rigorous robustness checks. Second, we identify spatial interaction as the core mediating mechanism: descriptive evidence confirms it is the primary pathway linking air transport to CRED. Third, inter-regional factor circulation acts as a significant moderating condition: the positive association between air transport and CRED is stronger when the factor endowment gap between region-pairs is smaller. Fourth, heterogeneity analyses show that air transport’s positive effect on CRED is more pronounced for region-pairs covering Central-South, North China, and East China, and that this effect gradually weakens over the sample period.

协调区域经济发展（Coordinated Regional Economic Development, CRED）是中国新发展理念的核心支撑，而民航业对推进协调区域经济发展的作用，日益受到政策与学界的广泛关注。协调区域经济发展是一个多维度的概念范畴，涵盖静态发展均衡、动态增长趋同与空间经济联动三大维度。探究航空运输如何塑造协调区域经济发展——包括其因果效应与内在作用机制——对于明确航空业在区域发展政策中的战略定位，以及生成基于实证的政策启示具有关键意义。本研究以理论驱动的分析框架为指引，采用2008—2024年中国七大民航区域的区域配对面板数据集，对研究假设开展实证检验。本研究的计量模型得到四项核心结论：其一，航空运输对协调区域经济发展具有显著的正向因果效应，该结论在通过工具变量法解决内生性问题，并经过一系列严格的稳健性检验后依然成立；其二，空间互动是核心中介传导机制，描述性证据证实其为航空运输影响协调区域经济发展的主要路径；其三，区域间要素循环发挥显著的调节作用，当区域配对间的要素禀赋差距较小时，航空运输与协调区域经济发展之间的正向关联会更强；其四，异质性分析结果显示，航空运输对协调区域经济发展的正向促进作用在覆盖中南、华北与华东地区的区域配对中更为显著，且该效应在样本期内逐步减弱。