目标引领如何影响基础设施?——基于数量与质量的双重视角

How does target-leading affect infrastructure? A quantitative and qualitative analysis

以目标引领经济发展是中国政府创造经济增长奇迹的伟大实践。基于政府超前引领理论,论证了地方政府可以通过实施增长目标管理,引领和驱动基础设施改善。采用2002—2018年全国31个省(区、市)的面板数据,基于政府工作报告中的经济增长目标数据构造经济增长压力指标,以度量目标引领程度,进而检验目标引领对基础设施数量和质量两个维度的影响。结果表明,经济增长压力对基础设施数量存在正向促进的线性影响效应,而对基础设施质量存在先促进随后转为遏制的"倒U型"非线性影响效应。究其机制,基础设施数量始终能正向影响经济增长,但基础设施质量对经济增长的促进作用存在门槛值,仅在质量较低时才成立。同时,基础设施数量的促进作用大于基础设施质量。进一步地,研究还发现了经济增长压力影响基础设施的效应只发生在发展程度较低的中西部地区以及2012年之前。研究深化了目标引领理论,厘清了目标驱动基础设施改善进而引领经济增长的内在逻辑,为有为政府引领经济发展提供了理论证据。

Using targets to promote economic development has been the great initiative of the Chinese government to create a miracle of economic growth. Based on the theory of government leadership, this paper demonstrates that local governments can lead and drive infrastructure improvements by implementing growth target management. The study, which uses panel data from 31 provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities)across the country from 2002 to 2018, constructs an economic growth pressure indicator based on the economic growth target data in government work reports to measure the degree of target-leading in these provinces, and it tests the impact of target-leading on the quantity and quality of infrastructure. The results show that economic growth pressure has a positive linear effect on the quantity of infrastructure and an “inverted U-shaped” non-linear effect on the quality of infrastructure, first promoting growth and then turning to containment. An investigation of the mechanism whereby economic growth occurs shows that the quantity of infrastructure always has a positive effect on growth, but the quality of infrastructure has a threshold for promoting growth, which is established when the quality is low. Moreover, the quantity of infrastructure has a greater impact than the quality of infrastructure. Finally, this study finds that economic growth pressure has an effect on infrastructure only in the low-developed central and western regions and before 2012. The study lends support to the target-leading theory, clarifies the internal logic of goal-driven infrastructure improvements to lead economic growth, and provides theoretical evidence for the government to lead economic development.