中文摘要：

已有文献认为，晋升政治激励是解释中国地方政府基础设施投资偏好的主要原因。但统计数据却表明，1995年以前基础设施资本存量增长速度与GDP增长速度是重合的，1995年以后基础设施资本存量的增长速度明显超过了GDP增长速度。由于改革以来晋升政治激励并未发生变化，因此已有文献无法解释1995年前后两个时期里为何出现基础设施增长模式的差异。本文提出的财政激励假说认为，分税制改革所带来的财政激励变化，是导致地方政府投资在1995年以后变得偏好于基础设施的主要原因。笔者利用省级面板数据对上述假说进行了检验，发现财政激励假说可以很好地解释分税制改革前后地方政府基础设施投资偏好的变化。这意味着进一步完善分税制对改进地方政府的支出偏好是至关重要的。

英文摘要：

It is believed that the political promotion incentives faced by local government is a crucial reason to explain China＇s infrastructure investment according to existing literature. However, the statistic data shows evidence opposing to this point. Before 1995, infrastructure capital stock has coincident growth rate with GDP. After 1995, the growth of infrastructure capital stock is significantly faster than GDP growth. Since the promotion incentives have not changed since 1978, existing literature cannot explain why local government＇s infrastructure investment behavior is different before and after 1995. Based on pro- vincial panel data, the authors present a fiscal hypothesis to explain local government＇s behavior, and empirically identify the determinants on infrastructure spending. The paper finds that, local government＇s preference infrastructure investment preference was mainly determined by the changes in fiscal incentives in 1994. This implies that further perfects of share-taxing system are vital to improve local government＇s expenditure structure.