High-Speed Railway Opening and Urban Innovation Dividend—A Case Study of Guangzhou Zhuhai Intercity High-Speed Railway

Based on the panel data of 41 cities along and around the Guangzhou Zhuhai intercity railway (GZR) from 2005 to 2018 and taking the opening of the GZR as a natural experimental scenario, the difference-in-difference (DID) method was used to empirically test the impact of the opening of the GZR on the innovation of cities along the line. The research results show that the opening of GZR has had a statistically positive effect on the innovation of cities along the route—that is, the innovation dividend of high-speed railway (HSR)cities exists, which improves the level of urban innovation—and further, there is time dynamics and regional heterogeneity in the innovation dividend. The research results of this paper have significant policy implications for optimizing China’s HSR network.