关键词: 属地化改革, 机场, 企业库存

Abstract: Good infrastructure includes not only increased investment or technological advancement, but also daily maintenance and operation efficiency. The decentralized management model of transportation infrastructure reduces the regulatory distance between regulators and operators, and improves the efficiency of information utilization, which in turn improves the efficiency of infrastructure operations and better promotes the regional economy. Using the natural experiment of airport decentralization reform in 2003-2004, this paper investigates the impact of decentralized governance on regional economic performance from the perspective of infrastructure operation efficiency. It is found that as the management of airports is transferred from the Civil Aviation Administration to the local governments, the operations of airports increased significantly in scale. Based on the perspective of enterprise inventory reflecting business performance and use of the difference-in-difference (DID) method, we find that the enterprise inventory in the cities with airports have significantly decreased by 8.5% after the reform. Triple difference (DDD) analysis shows that companies that are more dependent on air transport have more inventory declines. Further research finds that the investment in infrastructure construction after the reform has not changed significantly, but the use of local information improves the efficiency of airport operations. It is consistent with the hypothesis that the higher the communication cost and inventory heterogeneity in the city, the greater effect of the airport decentralization reform on reducing the inventory of enterprises. The placebo test and various kinds of robustness tests exclude the effects of other events and support the main conclusion of this paper. The research results show that decentralized governance can improve the operation efficiency of transportation infrastructure, so that it can better adapt to the situation of the region and promote social and economic development in the region.

Key words: Decentralization Reform, Airport, Enterprise Inventory