Research On Stage Differences Of The Role Of Transportation Infrastructure In Promoting Regiona Economic Growth

This dissertation attempts to answer the question "Are there differences in the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth in the different stages of economic development?” "What causes the differences?"The study of this problem will help to realize the coordinated development of regional transportation infrastructure construction and regional economy, and is helpful for planning and construction of transportation infrastructure in all regions of China.Economists have paid great attention to the role of traffic infrastructure construction in promoting regional economic growth for a long time. However, the study of the differences is still insufficient. From Adam Smith's "wealth of nations" to Paul Krugman's new economic geography, economists initiated the relationship between traffic infrastructure and the regional economic growth. Since Aschauer (1989)separates public investment from the total capital, economists have done a lot of research on the role of traffic infrastructure construction in promoting economic growth issues. Some studies have noticed that there are differences in the role of transportation infrastructure construction in promoting economic growth at different stages of regional economic development. However, there have been few studies which have made a thorough analysis on this problem. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss how the transport infrastructure plays a different role in promoting economic growth in different regions of different stages of economic development.In order to make a thorough analysis of the differences in the role of transportation infrastructure construction in promoting regional economic growth, this dissertation discusses the causes and influencing factors of the gradual change of the traffic infrastructure construction to the economic growth based on Yang Xiaokai's new classical economics.In order to carry on the empirical test to the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth in the different stages of economic development, this dissertation constructs an index system for dividing the stage of economic development in China, uses principal component analysis method to measure the economic development stage of each province in China. This dissertation sets up an econometric model, and makes an empirical analysis on the differences of the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth in the different stages of economic development from two angles of scale and structure change.Through theoretical analysis, the dissertation finds that the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth will be affected by economic scale,infrastructure stock and other investment returns.The promotion is positively related to the size of the economy and the level of division of labor, negatively related to the transport infrastructure stock. When the economic returns of other investment outside of the transportation infrastructure construction is high, it means that the economic cost of traffic infrastructure construction is high, the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to economic growth will be lower.On the contrary, when the economic returns of other investment outside of the transportation infrastructure construction is low, the relative contribution of transportation infrastructure investment to economic growth can be enhanced.With the evolution of regional economy stage, the transportation infrastructure construction presents an inverted U type trend to promote economic growth. In the factor oriented stage,the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to regional economic growth is at a moderate level. In the investment oriented stage, the traffic infrastructure construction plays a significant role in promoting economic growth. In the transformation stage, the promotion of transportation infrastructure construction in economic growth tends to decline. In the innovation oriented stage, the traffic infrastructure construction plays a relatively weak role in promoting economic growth.Traffic infrastructure with different transportation modes and technical levels has different effects on regional industrial division of labor and economic growth.Low grade highway construction is advantageous to the industrial division of labor in the region, while railway and high-grade highway are advantageous to the industrial division of labor among regions. In the factor oriented stage, the promotion of railway and highway construction to comparative advantage industries is higher than investment oriented stage and transition stage.But the railway construction plays a more important role in promoting the economic growth of the innovation oriented stage and the transition stage, while the construction of low grade highway will promote the economic growth of the investment oriented stage and the factor oriented stage more observably.The core innovation of this dissertation lies in the analysis of the influencing factors, the calculation methods and the differences of the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to the regional economic growth in different develooment stage.This dissertation combines the theory of division of labor and theory of Potter's regional competitiveness and stage of regional economic development, and explains the change of regional development stage by analysing the evolution of labor structure. At the same time, the dissertation introduces the substitution relation of transportation infrastructure construction investment and other industry investment into the new classical economics model. Then, this dissertation discussed the optimal scale of traffic infrastructure construction in the alternative perspective, and puts forward the method of calculating the optimal scale of traffic infrastructure construction. Under different structures of division of labor, this dissertation analyzes several factors' influence of the traffic infrastructure construction on the economic growth with numerical simulation,and discusses the theoretical reason that transportation infrastructure construction plays different roles in promoting economic growth in different regional economic development stage.At the same time, this dissertation constructs the index system and divides the economic development stages of each province in China based on Potter's theory of economic development stage. The econometric model is established to estimate the output elasticity of capital stock of transportation infrastructure in the provinces with different economic development stages. By which, this dissertation calculates the promotion of traffic infrastructure construction to the economic growth in each province of China. It proves that the traffic infrastructure construction has a phased difference in promoting economic growth. These empirical studies also constitute the innovation point of this dissertation.