Abstract: Combination of I-O with ESDA is of possibly important significance for expanding the I-O development field. A case study is carried out on the contribution of highway traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth in Xinjiang of China during the period from 1997 to 2008 using I-O and ESDA. The conclusions are drawn as follows. (1) The mechanism of highway traffic building industry in promoting economic growth in Xinjiang was mainly to achieve a significant value transfer of related goods of backward spreading effect industries with relatively low labor consumption, thus the forward spreading effect and consumption wave effect with higher proportions emerged, and the multiplier effect was an important pivot of highway traffic building industry in promoting economic growth in Xinjiang. (2) Based on contributions of highway traffic construction to economic growth, spatial correlation was gradually increased and diffusion effect was significant between all the prefectures, autonomous prefectures and cities of Xinjiang. Meanwhile, based on contribution rates of highway traffic construction to economic growth, there was a spatial positive correlation between all the prefectures, autonomous prefectures and cities of Xinjiang, and contra-polarization effect was also significant. (3) Contribution of highway traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth could not only meet the polarization demand in the central areas, but also promote greatly the social and economic development in the peripheral regions through the lateral diffusion of three-level vertical wave effect mode, and some reform and development benefits were primarily shared by all the people in the peripheral regions through participating in the highway traffic infrastructure construction directly or indirectly. The results show that the combination of I-O and ESDA plays a certain role in preliminarily revealing the effect mechanism, spatial differentiation and spatial interaction of the contribution of highway traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth.

Key words: Input-output Analysis (I-O), Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), highway traffic infrastructure construction, economic growth, Xinjiang