THE IMPACT AND THE MECHANISM OF INFRASTRUCTURE ON CHINA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH——An Extended Barro Growth Model

Abstract

Abstract: The infrastructure can directly promote economic growth as special capital stock, and indirectly promote economic growth by promoting investment and labor (increasing the quantity of production factors) and increasing the marginal productivity of capital and labor (improving the efficiency of production factors). This paper constructs an extended Barro economic growth model, and tests the two mechanisms by using China's provincial panel data from 1992 to 2016 and the intermediary effect model. The results show that the infrastructure can promote economic growth. But there exists heterogeneity in transportation, energy and communication infrastructure and in the time before and after the financial crisis in 2008. The direct effect shows a dynamic upward trend, while the intermediary effect decreases gradually. This paper further uses the nonlinear model to test the reasons of the heterogeneity. The results show that the promotion effect of infrastructure on economic growth in China is mainly scale expansion, quantity or extensionstyle, not quality or connotationstyle. The total effect of energy and communication infrastructure on economic growth has scale effect, while the scale effect of transportation infrastructure is not significant. However, transportation infrastructure also has a continuous promoting effect on economic growth, which shows that there is still a large investment potential for these three types of infrastructure in China, and the key is to improve the efficiency of production factors through infrastructure construction.

Key words: infrastructure, economic growth, mediation effects, scale effect

摘要： 基础设施既可以作为特殊的资本存量直接促进经济增长，又可以通过促进投资和劳动力增加（增加生产要素数量）以及提高存量资本和劳动力的边际生产率（提高生产要素效率）间接促进经济增长。本文构建了一个扩展的Barro经济增长模型，并利用中国1992—2016年省级面板数据和中介效应模型对两条机制进行实证检验。结果发现：基础设施对经济增长具有促进作用，但对交通、能源、通信三类基础设施的影响以及在2008年金融危机前后均表现出异质性。直接效应呈动态上升趋势，中介效应则逐渐下降。针对异质性的原因，本文进一步采用非线性模型进行检验。结果表明我国基础设施对经济增长的促进作用主要表现为规模扩张型、数量型或外延型，而不是以质量型和内涵型为主的形式。能源和通信基础设施对经济增长的总效应具有规模效应，交通基础设施的规模效应不显著，但也对经济增长具有持续促进作用。这说明目前我国三类基础设施仍然具有较大投资潜力。其中的关键是要通过基础设施建设提高生产要素效率。

关键词: 基础设施, 经济增长, 中介效应, 规模效应

FANG Fuqian, TIAN Ge, XIAO Han. THE IMPACT AND THE MECHANISM OF INFRASTRUCTURE ON CHINA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH——An Extended Barro Growth Model[J]. Economic Theory and Business Management, 2020, 40(12): 13-27.

方福前, 田鸽, 肖寒. 基础设施对中国经济增长的影响及机制研究*——基于扩展的Barro增长模型[J]. 经济理论与经济管理, 2020, 40(12): 13-27.

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