营商环境、企业家精神与经济增长质量——来自中国城市的经验证据

Business Environment,Entrepreneurship and the Quality of Economic Growth:Evidence from Chinese Cities

在中国持续优化营商环境的背景下,本文全面测度了2008至2016年全国260个地级及以上城市的营商环境指数。在此基础上,通过整理企业工商注册信息和创新能力指数,从经济增长内生力量——企业家精神的视角出发,对营商环境改善是否提升了经济增长质量这一现实问题进行了实证研究。结果表明:(1)中国城市的营商环境水平逐年上升,2013年以后增幅明显,东部地区存在集群效应,其指数远高于中西部地区;(2)营商环境改善能够驱动城市全要素生产率的提升,该作用在外围城市,即大部分地级城市的溢出效应更大,在全要素生产率组成部分上,营商环境的改善主要促进了综合效率的提升;(3)企业家精神是以上现象的主要作用机制,并且该结论在将商事制度改革作为营商环境优化的“准自然实验”、以倾向匹配双重差分方法(PSM-DID)进行的稳健性检验中再次得到支持。以上研究结果为进一步优化营商环境与推动经济高质量发展提供了企业家精神维度的理论依据。

Under the background of continuous improvement of business environment in China,this paper comprehensively measures the business environment index of 260 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2008 to 2016.On this basis,by sorting out the business registration information and innovation ability index of enterprises,this paper makes an empirical study on whether the improvement of business environment improves the quality of economic growth from the perspective of entrepreneurship that the endogenous force of economic growth.The results show that:(1)the level of business environment in Chinese cities is on the rise year by year,with a significant increase after 2013.(2)the improvement of business environment can drive the improvement of total factor productivity in cities,which has a larger spillover effect in marginal cities,that is,most prefecture-level cities.In terms of the components of total factor productivity,the improvement of business environment mainly increases the comprehensive efficiency.(3)entrepreneurship is the main mechanism of the above phenomenon,and entrepreneurship plays a bigger role than innovation in this process,this conclusion remains stable in the robustness test of using PSM-DID method to further verify the impact of commercial system reform on urban economic growth.The above conclusions provide a theoretical basis for China to further optimize the business environment and promote high-quality development.