2025 Volume 28 Pages 35-45
This study examines the impact of China’s Western Development Strategy on economic growth in the western region using nighttime light data for 338 prefecture-level cities from 1995 to 2019. We employ a Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach combined with propensity score matching (PSM-DID) to mitigate selection bias and obtain more reliable estimates. The results indicate that during the first three years after the strategy’s implementation, the anticipated growth-promoting effect did not emerge; instead, a statistically significant suppressive effect was observed, possibly due to insufficient follow-up measures and limited experience in policy implementation. From 2003 onward, the effect turned positive, suggesting the materialization of the policy’s growth benefits. However, since 2011, a renewed suppressive effect has appeared, implying a diminishing impact of the strategy over time. To verify the robustness of the results, we conducted placebo tests by randomly assigning treatment status to fictitious regions and re-estimating the DID model. The coefficients for the pseudo-treated groups were statistically insignificant and clearly different from those of the actual treatment group, supporting the validity and reliability of our main findings.
