As China’s economy enters the digital era, guiding enterprises to conduct better digital transformations has become an urgent problem to be solved. In this regard, this paper builds a multiperiod DID model to empirically examine the impact of opening a high-speed railway (HSR) on corporate digital transformation by matching the data of HSR with the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2019. It was found that (1) the opening of an HSR can significantly improve corporate digital transformation, and this finding still held after considering endogeneity issues and various robustness tests. (2) A heterogeneity analysis showed that the promoting effect of opening an HSR on corporate digital transformation was mainly found in nonstate enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and enterprises located in cities with low initial transportation endowment. (3) A mechanistic analysis found that opening an HSR can promote corporate digital transformation by promoting senior staff mobility, increasing industry competition, and enhancing financial agglomeration. This paper not only enriches the research related to the economic consequences of opening an HSR, but it also has important implications for guiding enterprises to successfully conduct corporate digital transformations.

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Under the background of the economy “shifting from real to virtual”, how to guide real enterprises to return to their main businesses has become an urgent problem to be solved in the stage of microeconomic bodies moving toward high-quality development. Based on the perspective of the opening of high-speed railway (HSR), this paper builds a time-varying DID model to systematically test the relationship between HSR and corporate financialization by matching the data of HSR among 286 cities in China with the data of A-share non-financial companies listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. The results showed that there is a significant negative correlation between HSR and corporate financialization, i.e., the opening of HSR can significantly inhibit corporate financialization. This conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis found that the opening of HSR can restrain corporate financialization through “crowding-out effects” and “liquidity replenishment effects”. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the inhibitory effect of HSR on corporate financialization is more significant in large enterprises, fiercely competitive industries, and cities with high initial transportation resources. This paper deeply explored the relationship between the opening of HSR and corporate financialization, which not only enriches the existing literature but also provides a useful reference for guiding real enterprises to actively return to their main businesses.