Decomposition analysis of decoupling freight transport fromeconomic growth in China

Freight transport industry plays a significant role in boosting economic growth, while alsocreating many negative externalities for social welfare and the environment. Using data from1997 to 2017, this study employs the complete decomposition technique to identify the drivingforces of freight transport and explores its internal relations with economic growth in China. Thedecomposition analysis focuses on four factors that are responsible for freight transport: economic activity, industrial structure, transport intensity, and haulage distance. Then, the decoupling index is adopted to examine the decoupling relationship between freight transport andeconomic growth in China. The results showed that weak decoupling between freight transportand economic growth was the main state during the study period. A strong decoupling effect wasidentified in 1997–1998, 2012–2013, and 2014–2015, whereas no decoupling effect was observed in 1998–1999, 2008–2009, and 2011–2012. The transport intensity was the most important contributor to the decoupling progress, the industrial structure effect played a role inpromoting the decoupling progress over half of the years during the research period, and thehaulage distance effect facilitated the decoupling progress in more than one-third of the yearsexamined.