Exploring the Systemic Spatial Impacts of Urban Rail Transit Advancement on Population Migration and the Urban Economy

This research develops spatial panel difference-in-differences models (SPDMs) to investigate the impacts of urban rail transit (URT) on the selectivity of population migration. Intermediate effects studies are implemented to discover the intrinsic mechanisms of the URT impacts. A heterogeneity analysis is conducted to examine the differences in the URT impacts. The regression results indicate that urban populations increase rapidly owing to the advancement of the URT system. URT is capable of increasing urban population through indirect effects. Moreover, there exist heterogeneities within the exogeneities of URT in different cities.