经济自由及其变动的增长效应——来自跨国经济增长面板数据的再检视

经济自由是市场经济的基础，是社会基础设施（Social Infrastructure）的核心内涵。经济自由的提升有利于提高存量资本的生产配置效率，并对国内外投资给出积极信号，推动经济增长。本文在新古典经济增长理论框架下，研究各国社会基础设施发展水平的不同及其转型动态，用近百个国家的增长面板数据验证经济自由水平及其提升的增长效应。此外，本文还用动态面板数据的GMM估计方法检验发现，经济自由是经济增长的Granger原因，而后者不是前者的Granger原因。该结论对发展中国家的经济发展政策具有指导意义。

The Growth Effects of Economic Freedom and Its Changes --An Empirical Revisit Based on Cross-country Data

The neoclassical and endogenous growth models are based on the assumption of given market-oriented institutions, therefore they do not study social infrastructure. In the framework of the neoclassical growth model with a reconsideration of institutional arrangements and dynamics, this paper investigates the role of social infrastructure in economic growth. Panel data of 97 economies are applied to test the contribution of economic freedom to economic growth. The robust growth effect of economic freedom is investigated. The GMM method of dynamic panel data shows that economic freedom is the Granger-casualty for economic growth but the inverse causality does not hold.