Urban Infrastructure and Economic Development

This book provides an overview of the history, basic concepts, and provision models of infrastructure, significant theories on infrastructure economics, practices at home and abroad that reflect the economic development effects of infrastructure, and four infrastructure economic growth models. Great attention is placed on the domestic front. This book describes and discusses in detail the historical background, development trends, achievements, and challenges of China’s infrastructure from 1949 to 2019, under the classic “supply and demand” analysis framework. From the four perspectives of market integration, open development, people’s livelihood, and endogenous growth, this book carries out an empirical study on how to quantify and make causal inferences about the economic development effects of infrastructure. Based on the conclusion that national governance is of important help to infrastructure provision, this book interprets China’s governance system and its impact on infrastructure provision from the angle of decentralization and offers suggestions on policy optimizing.

Chunyang Pan, with research interests in public economics and development economics, is Associate Professor and Master’s Supervisor at School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, and Member of Shanghai Research Center for Public Economy and Social Governance. He earned his doctoral degree after attending the program jointly offered by Fudan University and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. As to academic writing, he has published 5 monographs, 2 translations, and more than 40 papers in noted academic journals. He has presided over 7 research projects, including China’s National Social Science Foundation Projects, and won the Third Prize of Outstanding Achievement Award in National University Scientific Research by China’s Ministry of Education and the First Prize of Outstanding Achievements in Philosophy and Social Sciences by Shanghai Municipality.