地方经济增长目标对外商直接投资的影响与机制研究

The Impact and Mechanism of Local Economic Growth Target on Foreign Direct Investment

经济增长目标管理是中国宏观经济的重要现象,外商直接投资的注入为经济增长提供了重要的源泉。文章基于中国各地级市政府工作报告公布的年度经济增长目标,形成284个地级市2001~2016年面板数据,检验经济增长目标对吸引外资的影响。研究发现,经济增长目标的提高显著增大了实际利用外资数量,该发现是稳健的,在进行了变换度量变量、回归样本和考虑内生性的稳健性检验之后,结论依然成立。究其机制,在既定的经济增长目标的激励下,地方政府扩大土地出让面积,增大人均财政支出,以此吸引外商直接投资。文章还发现,地方经济增长目标的提高将导致外商直接投资显著增加的效应,仅在欠发达的中西部地区成立,在2012年之前出现。文章的发现为进一步优化政府目标管理实现经济高质量发展提供了有益的参考。

Economic growth target management is an important phenomenon in China’ s macro economy. The injection of foreign direct investment( FDI) provides a significant source for economic growth. Based on the annual economic growth targets announced in the government reports of all cities, this paper empirically analyzes the panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities from 2001 to 2016 to examine the impact of economic growth target on attracting foreign investment. The research result shows that the improvement of economic growth target significantly increases the amount of actually utilized foreign capital. This result is robust. After the robustness test of changing measurement variables, regression samples and considering endogeneity, the conclusion is still valid. The mechanism is that the local government expands the land transfer area and increases the per capita financial expenditure to attract FDI under the incentive of the established economic growth target.This paper also reveals that the improvement of local economic growth target will lead to a significant increase in FDI, which was only found in the underdeveloped central and western regions before 2012. The findings of this paper provide a useful reference for further optimizing the government target management and achieving the high-quality economic development.