Improving transport connectivity has become increasingly significant to international trade research and transport policy agendas. Little has been done so far to investigate the direct association between maritime connectivity and economic growth, let alone the exact effect magnitude. As the connection between ports, local economies, and global logistics networks becomes ever closer, the economic role of port connectivity deserves closer attention. This paper uses the Panama Canal expansion as a quasi-natural experiment, and proposes a dynamic difference-in-differences (DID) method for making causal inferences about the impact of port connectivity on regional economic growth.

This study leverages data mining of multiple sources of satellite data to provide innovative measures of ship movement, port area, and economic activity. We construct an index based on the global shipping network data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to measure the extent to which the ports are exposed to the canal expansion. This allows careful handling of the endogeneity problem. Change in the port area is used as a proxy for port capacity expansion, and is identified via satellite imaging. Night light data provide a measure of regional economic activity around the ports, and of the effect of port connectivity on regional economic growth. Our findings suggest that improvements in port connectivity have a significant and fairly durable stimulating effect on regional economic growth, and that port infrastructure expansion is one potential channel for realizing this effect.

改善交通连通性对国际贸易研究和交通政策议程变得越来越重要。迄今为止，很少有人调查海上连通性和经济增长之间的直接关联，更不用说确切的影响幅度了。随着港口、当地经济和全球物流网络之间的联系越来越紧密，港口连通性的经济作用值得密切关注。本文将巴拿马运河扩建作为一个准自然实验，提出了一种动态差分法 (DID)，用于对港口连通性对区域经济增长的影响进行因果推断。

本研究利用多个来源的卫星数据进行数据挖掘，以提供船舶运动、港口区域和经济活动的创新措施。我们根据来自自动识别系统 (AIS) 的全球航运网络数据构建了一个指数，以衡量港口受到运河扩建影响的程度。这允许仔细处理内生性问题。港口面积的变化被用作港口容量扩张的代理，并通过卫星成像进行识别。夜间灯光数据可衡量港口周围的区域经济活动，以及港口连通性对区域经济增长的影响。我们的研究结果表明，港口连通性的改善对区域经济增长具有显着且相当持久的刺激作用，