| Since 2014,China’s central government has been paying more and more attention to the government and social capital cooperation(PPP)model,and has introduced a series of policies to promote the efficient application of the PPP model in local economic construction.Along with the intensive introduction of policies,the scale of PPP projects is also expanding rapidly.In the context of increased infrastructure investment and government debt expansion,the 2020 Government Work Report once again put forward proposals of improving the market-based investment and financing system and supporting private enterprises to participate equally in new infrastructure projects,and the PPP model is an important path for social capital parties to participate in infrastructure projects.The joint participation of government,market and social capital provides an opportunity to improve the quality and speed of urban construction projects under the PPP model,and one of the important manifestations of this improvement in the quality of urban development is the improvement of the level of urban innovation.Against this backdrop,in order to validate the impact of the PPP model on urban innovation capacity and its institutional context and optimization path,the following three issues are posed: first,what motivates local governments to choose the PPP model to support local infrastructure investment,that is,what are the institutional factors for the expansion of PPP investment? And second,how does the expansion of PPP investment affect urban innovation capability,and what is the impact mechanism? Last,what institutional optimization paths local governments can take to foster scaling up PPP investment and thus enhance urban innovation capacity,which will be further analyzed.Based on all above,the relevant information on PPP projects in the implementation stage in the project management library of China Public Private Partnerships Center for the period 2012-2017 is manually collected,then summed these data by year and city,and integrated these data with city-level macro data from the China City Statistical Yearbook and the China Statistical Yearbook to obtain a city-level unbalanced panel data.What is more,the data related with the reform of city administrative examination and approval is collected so as to analyze the institutional optimization path of PPP investment to enhance urban innovation capacity,and the above data is integrated for the empirical analysis.In terms of methods,the empirical regression analysis,the literature analysis and the descriptive statistical analysis are adopted to analyze relevant issues.The institutional basis of PPP project financing expansion in China is analyized at first by adopting the data and methodology above-mentioned,and the conclusion is the fiscal and financial system combining fiscal and financial decentralization.The empirical analysis shows that the local governments in the cities with higher levels of fiscal and financial decentralization have more clear incentives to expand PPP financing within their jurisdictions.Specifically,the promotion function of fiscal decentralization level on the expansion of PPP financing is more significant in cities with higher level of financial decentralization,and the promotion effect of financial decentralization level on the expansion of PPP financing is more significant in cities with higher level of fiscal decentralization as well.Further empirical analysis shows that driven by fiscal and financial decentralization,the motivation of local governments to expand PPP projects is predominantly for financing local infrastructure,most of which are government-paid PPP projects.Then,the impact of the rapid development of PPP on the improvement of urban innovation capability is discussed,and three main mechanisms of the impact of infrastructure investment on urban innovation capacity by PPP are explored.Firstly,a well-developed infrastructure can itself attract industrial clusters,which in turn can enhance innovation capacity through the three paths of reward,matching and competition.Since PPP improves the supply efficiency of infrastructure projects,infrastructure projects with PPP can contribute more to the improvement of urban innovation capacity than traditional infrastructure projects.Secondly,PPP can be capable of enhancing urban innovation capability through increased spending on science and technology innovation.With the introduction of social capital,the pressure on local governments to spend funds for infrastructure investment is reduced,so with increased disposable income,local governments tend to increase their investment in areas such as science,education,culture and health.Compared to enterprises,local governments will invest more in areas such as basic science,which have longer payback periods and greater uncertainty,and breakthroughs in basic science can play a greater role in improving the urban innovation capacity than innovations at the technological level.In addition,PPP can enhance urban innovation capacity by improving the institutional environment.Under the PPP approach,local governments and social capital parties jointly participate in the construction of public infrastructure,with a clear division of labor between the two,and local governments generally do not interfere with the operation and management of the project by administrative force.With the improvement of urban marketization level,companies will put less effort into rentseeking and establishing good relations with local governments,and will be able to increase their efforts in areas such as innovation.Therefore,the urban innovation capability can be promoted.Relevant empirical tests show that PPP projects have a crowding in effect on urban innovation capacity,that is,the number of patent applications is also higher n cities participating in more PPP projects.Group tests of the above findings also shows that the above influence mechanisms are widely present in both invention and non-invention patents,and in urban cluster cities and non-urban cluster cities,but are even more evident in the Midwest.Finally,whether the administrative examination and approval system is an optimal path for PPP investment to prompt the quality and efficiency of urban innovation is tested.It is found that the advancement of administrative approval system reform promoted the expansion of local PPP investment and shortened the time spent on landing PPP projects,which accelerated the speed of landing PPP projects.Moreover,the advancement of administrative approval system reform more obviously promotes the expansion of PPP investment in private enterprises,in areas without the participation of listed companies,and in areas with a lower quality institutional environment.Further mechanism analysis shows that administrative approval system reform can promote urban innovation by expanding the scale of urban PPP investment and thus improving the business environment,which implies that advancing urban administrative approval reform is an effective optimization path for PPP investment to promote quality and efficiency of urban innovation.Based on the above analysis,policy recommendations from four aspects are put forward.The first is the appropriate decentralization of finance and finance,specifically including: the reform of the fiscal system should follow the principle of appropriate decentralization and statutory decentralization with the goal of "clear authority and responsibility,financial coordination,and regional balance";standardize the ways for local governments to mobilize financial resources;take the promotion assessment as a means to fully mobilize local governments to adopt the PPP model to build and improve the local infrastructure system.The second is to continuously deepen the administrative approval system reform,which includes improving the rule of law protection system,optimizing the government service environment,and promoting the development of high-quality PPP model under the benign interaction between government and enterprises.The third is to attract social capital parties with innovation and promote urban innovation with the PPP model,specifically including,taking new infrastructure as a grip to explore projects with stable profit models,enhancing industrial innovation capabilities,and strengthening talent team building.The last is to establish a more scientific and standardized PPP project selection system to improve the quality and efficiency of local infrastructure construction and to promote innovation spillover from PPP projects to accelerate the enhancement of innovation capacity.Specifically,it includes establishing a scientific and standardized "two evaluation and one case" system,establishing a scientific and standardized project proposal design and validation system,and establishing a scientific and standardized project contract revision and improvement mechanism. |
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