| This article is a theoretical and empirical study on the impact of infrastructure capital investment on economic growth.Exploring the power source of economic growth is an eternal research hotspot in economics.Historical experience shows that strengthening infrastructure investment is conducive to promoting economic growth.In fact,the high-speed and medium-to-high-speed growth of China's economy is accompanied by a high investment rate.The proportion of infrastructure investment in GDP rose from 4.9% in 1985 to 21.8% in 2017.Putting such a high proportion of infrastructure investment in the context of an economic growth rate of nearly 10% is even more remarkable.However,infrastructure investment also has a law of diminishing marginal output,and there is a "moderate" development problem.Otherwise,infrastructure investment may be invalid or inefficient due to policy inertia.The scale of investment is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for economic growth.To achieve long-term sustainable economic growth,it is not only necessary to expand the scale of investment,but also to focus on investment efficiency.At the same time,some studies also believe that large-scale infrastructure construction may solidify the investment-driven growth model and inhibit the increase in total factor productivity,which is not conducive to the long-term sustainable economic development.Therefore,a comprehensive and systematic study of China's infrastructure capital accumulation,whether infrastructure capital investment can also promote economic growth,and how infrastructure capital investment promotes economic growth has very important theoretical value and practical significance.Based on a systematic review of theoretical and empirical research involving infrastructure capital investment and its impact on economic growth,this paper clearly defines the connotation of infrastructure and other related concepts,sets up a theoretical analysis framework that infrastructure capital investment directly and indirectly affects economic growth.At the same time,by further clarifying the principle of capital investment estimation,carefully adjusting the scope of infrastructure statistics,this paper adopts the non-traditional approach of perpetual inventory method to systematically estimate the complete set of capital stocks(including total wealth capital stock,net wealth capital stock and productive capital stock)of the overall and different types of infrastructure.Based on this,this paper analyzes the current situation and problems of capital investment in infrastructure and economic growth in the country and in various regions by descriptive statistics,and conducts a series of empirical tests using FE,PCSE,spatial measurement,panel quantile,and instrumental variables,which including the impact of infrastructure capital investment on overall economic growth,and the multidimensional impact of infrastructure capital investment on regional economic growth,and from the perspective of market integration and regional innovation capabilities,empirically tested the transmission mechanism of infrastructure capital investment to promote economic growth.The main research conclusions of this article are as follows:Firstly,with China's high investment rate in the past 40 years,the infrastructure capital stock has risen sharply on the overall level,but there are problems of imbalance and insufficiency among regions.The calculation results show that: compared with the total or net capital stock of wealth infrastructure,the capital stock of productive infrastructure takes into account the decommissioning and the loss of productivity of this type of capital goods,so as to better reflect the scale of infrastructure capital investment that actually serves the production process.China's productive infrastructure capital stock rose sharply from 1993 to 2017 at an average annual rate of 12.66%.However,the capital stock of China's productive infrastructure is not balanced between regions.It is distributed in a stepped manner from east to west,with a typical "core-peripheral" feature,that is,the eastern coastal area is the core and the central and western regions are the periphery.After eliminating the impact of population size,the per capita level in the southwest and northwestern regions is generally higher than that in the eastern region,and significantly higher than the central region.Among the specific provinces,the production infrastructure stocks of Guangdong,Jiangsu,Shandong,Zhejiang and Sichuan are at the leading level in the country,while Tibet,Qinghai,Ningxia,Hainan and Gansu are in a backward state.Among different types of infrastructure,the productive capital stock of point infrastructure was lower than that of network infrastructure in the early stage,but in recent years it has not only surpassed the latter,but has also risen at a faster rate.Secondly,China's infrastructure capital investment can still significantly promote economic growth,but there are differences between different types of infrastructure,different development stages and different regions.The empirical results of comprehensive use of FE,PCSE,spatial measurement,panel quantiles,and instrumental variables show that: after China's overall production function is included in the infrastructure capital stock,the sum of the output elasticities of all factors of production is between 1.0296 and 1.0372,which has the nature of slight increasing returns to scale.After focusing the research scale on the regional level,infrastructure capital investment still has a significant role in promoting economic growth as a whole,but there is an inverted "U"-shaped change trend.From the perspective of different types of infrastructure,both point infrastructure capital investment and network infrastructure capital investment have a significant role in promoting economic growth.The output elasticity value of the former is greater,and it will continue to expand after the economy enters the "new normal";while the output elasticity value of the latter is smaller,and it has a more obvious inverted "U"-shaped characteristic.As far as different regions are concerned,the output elasticity of the overall infrastructure capital investment is the western region,the central region,and the eastern region from high to bottom.Among them,the output elasticity value of point infrastructure capital investment and network infrastructure capital investment is relatively close in the eastern region.The output elasticity of network infrastructure capital investment is relatively high in the central region.However,the output elasticity of point infrastructure capital investment is higher in the western region.Thirdly,infrastructure capital investment can promote sustained economic growth by promoting market integration,and there is heterogeneity in the conduction effect of market integration among different types of infrastructure,different market segments and different regions.The comprehensive use of the "price method",intermediary effect analysis and instrumental variables and other empirical methods show that: The degree of segmentation of the domestic comprehensive market and the three major sub-markets of commodities,capital goods,and labor showed a trend of smaller fluctuations during the sample period.Among them,the value of the eastern region is relatively smaller in most years,while the western region is larger;the labor market fluctuates more and the data is greater in most years,and the commodity and capital goods markets are the opposite.The mediating effect of market integration in the impact of infrastructure capital investment on economic growth is 0.0203,accounting for 6.05% of the total effect.Compared with the infrastructure capital investment,the degree of comprehensive market segmentation has a more obvious transmission effect in the network infrastructure capital investment in promoting economic growth.In the three types of market segments,further breaking the segmentation of the commodity market and promoting the integration of the commodity market are more meaningful for the role of infrastructure capital investment in promoting economic growth.In coastal areas,the conduction effect of the degree of comprehensive market segmentation is more prominent,with a mediation effect of 0.0804,accounting for as much as 23.39% of the total effect.Finally,infrastructure capital investment can also promote sustained economic growth by improving regional innovation capabilities,and there are differences in the transmission of regional innovation capabilities between different types of infrastructure and between regions with different levels of economic development.The results of the comprehensive use of empirical methods such as mediating effect analysis and instrumental variables show that: regional innovation ability has a significant mediating effect in the promotion of economic growth by infrastructure capital investment.After removing the samples of autonomous regions,the mediating effect reaches 0.0252,which accounts for 13.79% of the total effect.The proportion of the mediating effect of regional innovation capability decreases successively in the samples of municipalities,provinces and autonomous regions,indicating that the more developed the economy is,the more obvious the transmission effect of regional innovation capability is.Both point infrastructure capital investment and network infrastructure capital investment can promote regional economic growth by enhancing regional innovation capabilities,but the mediating effect of regional innovation capabilities accounts for a higher proportion of the former.In addition,after incorporating the two functional mechanisms of market integration and regional innovation capabilities into a unified framework,the empirical test found that in the total effect of infrastructure capital investment affecting economic growth,the relative contribution shares of market integration and regional innovation capabilities were 10.47% and 4.24%,respectively.Therefore,the mechanism of market integration is relatively more important.The policy enlightenment contained in the research of this article mainly includes the following aspects.The first is to continuously improve the capital accounting system.Fully connect with the latest international capital accounting standards and adopt an estimation method that incorporates capital stock and capital flow into a unified framework;accelerate the compilation of statistical data at all levels,carry out various special surveys,obtain first-hand relevant information that meets China's reality,and reserve historical basic data for subsequent capital accounting at all levels and sub-sectors(including infrastructure).The second is to continue to optimize infrastructure investment strategies.Continue to use infrastructure investment as an important means of proactive fiscal policy,focusing on increasing investment in areas with shortcomings and weaknesses;optimize infrastructure investment strategies in accordance with local conditions,and reduce regional differences;promote investment among subjects Cross-regional cooperation promotes the internalization of negative spillover effects of infrastructure.The third is to focus on improving the degree of domestic market integration.Under the guidance of the top-level design of "a game of chess across the country",rationally divide functional areas and formulate differentiated performance evaluation standards;continue to relax market access conditions and implement a unified market access negative list system;intensify the reform of the household registration system and accelerate the pace of farmers' citizenship;the central and western inland areas accelerate the transfer of industries,accelerate integration into the international and domestic markets,and enhance the degree of regional market integration.The fourth is to continuously enhance regional innovation capabilities.Strengthen the construction of network infrastructure along the lines of each region,promote the spread and spillover of key innovation elements such as knowledge and technology across fields and regions;continue to optimize the infrastructure structure,reduce the possibility of resistance to enterprise innovation and development due to insufficient investment in infrastructure;accelerate the transformation of innovation models,and focus on improving the quality of patent applications and subsequent applications. |
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