This paper investigates how transportation infrastructure projects facilitate research collaboration across cities and promote innovation. Exploiting the construction of high-speed rail (HSR) network as a plausibly exogenous shock, we find that innovation in less-developed cities significantly and quantitatively improves after the cities are connected to more developed cities through the HSR network. Of all mechanisms considered, incremental research collaboration can explain 2% to 12% of the innovation improvement. The empirical results imply that even under the “promotion tournament model “ of spatial competition structure, cities can still mutually benefit through research collaboration.

本文研究了交通基础设施项目如何促进跨城市的研究合作并促进创新。利用高铁网络的建设作为一种可能的外来冲击，我们发现，在城市通过高铁网络连接到较发达的城市之后，欠发达城市的创新显着并在数量上得到了改善。在考虑的所有机制中，渐进式研究协作可以解释2％至12％的创新改进。实证结果表明，即使在空间竞争结构的“促销锦标赛模型”下，城市仍可以通过研究合作而互惠互利。