基础设施维护投入与经济增长

Infrastructure Maintenance Input and Economic Growth

中国已建成规模庞大的基础设施,加强存量资产维护的重要性与日俱增。本文评估了城市基础设施维护投入的经济增长效应,基于地级市面板数据并利用工具变量实证发现:城市基础设施维护投入有力促进了经济增长;异质性分析表明,维护投入的增长促进效应取决于城市基础设施的使用强度及建成使用时间,在东部地区、人口规模大、建成区占比高的城市,维护投入促进经济增长的作用更加强烈;进一步利用世界银行的企业调查数据证实,维护投入有力提升了基础设施质量从而保障企业经营的顺利进行,是维护投入促进经济增长的重要微观机制。本文的政策含义是,中国应加快落实基础设施全生命周期管理理念,建立健全存量基础设施维护投入机制,实现基础设施优质供给与经济高质量发展等多重收益。

China has built a huge amount of public infrastructure assets,it is urgent to strengthen the maintenance of existing assets.This paper investigates the impact of urban infrastructure maintenance input on economic growth.Based on prefecture-level panel data and taking instrumental variable regression method,we find:(1)urban infrastructure maintenance input has a significant effect to promote economic growth;(2)there is betweenjurisdiction heterogeneity effect that maintenance input produces a much stronger effect in eastern cities,or cities with large population size and high proportion of built up areas;(3)Using World Bank enterprise survey data,the mechanism analysis shows that,maintenance input effectively improves the quality of infrastructure to ensure the smooth operation of enterprises.Based on these evidences,China should accelerate the implementation of the idea of life-cycle management of public infrastructure,strengthen the maintenance of existing assets,establish and improve the maintenance budget mechanism,and then achieve multiple benefits such as high-quality infrastructure supply and high-quality economic development.