I. Introduction.
Since 2003, when the World Bank first released its Doing Business report, the business environment has gradually become a hot topic for many scholars at home and abroad, and has received extensive attention. The business environment is a comprehensive ecosystem of the external environment faced by market players in the process of entry, operation and exit. A good business environment is of great significance to promoting China's economic restructuring and upgrading, which can achieve sustainable economic development and is an important driving force for urban economic growth.
In recent years, all levels have attached great importance to creating a first-class business environment, and have introduced a series of important policies on optimizing the business environment, aiming to stimulate the vitality of market players and release greater growth potential by improving the business environment. ** The general secretary pointed out that "to create a stable, fair and transparent business environment, and to accelerate the construction of a new system of open economy". In 2019, the General Office of the People's Republic of China issued the Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment, focusing on improving the capacity and level of government services, mobilizing market enthusiasm and social creativity, and improving the level of economic development.
What is the current status of theoretical research and practice related to business environment and economic development, what are the hot issues, what is the internal mechanism of business environment construction on economic development, what factors play a substantial role in economic development, and whether there are differences in the impact on regions, and what perspectives can be further studied?In order to answer these questions, the author has conducted research on a large number of literatures.
"Economic growth" has become one of the high-frequency keywords, and the significance of discovering this law is as follows: on the one hand, economic growth is the foundation of economic development, and the stage of economic growth is the basic premise and necessary process of economic development;On the other hand, because economic development is difficult to measure through the establishment of econometric models, most of the existing studies are quantitative exploration of the quality of economic growth, so the impact of the business environment on the economy should be studied with economic development as the core and economic growth as an important quantifiable factor.
3. The impact mechanism of the business environment on economic development.
Studying the mechanism of business environment in promoting economic development can help scholars to concretize the direction of policy implementation, clarify the heterogeneity of different regions and different environments, and provide more targeted suggestions.
1) Evaluate the business environment and its impact on economic development.
Wang Liuping found that the business environment has an obvious positive effect on the agglomeration of economic development factors, economic development vitality and economic development efficiency of a city, and a high-level business environment can promote the gathering of regional manpower and capital between regions, promote the prosperity and development of regional non-public economy, improve the efficiency of resource allocation, and promote the growth of per capita GDP and other economic indicators.
Based on a study by the Fraser Institute's Index of Economic Freedom (EFW). He et al. [10] used the Fraser Institute's Ease of Doing Business Index as an explanatory variable to establish panel data of more than 100 economies from 2000 to 2017 to analyze the impact of business environment on economic growth.
The results show that improving the business environment has a significant positive impact on the economy in both the short and long term. Dynamic panel estimates suggest a 1% improvement in the business environment and a short-term increase in real GDP per capita of 0049%, long-term improvement 261%。
In addition, among the sub-indicators of the business environment, reducing control, improving the degree of property rights protection, and increasing the degree of cross-border convenience have a significant positive effect on economic development. He Daxing et al. [11] further constructed a comprehensive index of economic development quality, quantified economic development with the help of principal component analysis, and empirical research showed that the business environment plays an important role in promoting high-quality economic development, and found that optimizing the business environment can enhance the convenience of financing and reduce the cost of institutional flexibility, thereby promoting economic growth.
Research on domestic localization index system. The above two types of indicators are more at the national level, which have certain limitations in terms of accuracy and breadth, and cannot fully reflect the actual situation of each country. Therefore, on the basis of learning from the doingbusiness index, Chinese scholars have selected more abundant and distinctive indicators according to the level of research objects and research focus [12].
Wu Shaohua et al. [13] took 35 cities in the "China Urban Business Environment Report" released by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Research Institute as a sample, analyzed the soft environment, market environment, infrastructure, ecological environment, business cost, and social services as indicators, and found that if the business environment index increases by 1%, the per capita GDP will increase by 1032%；In addition, reducing business costs, improving the market environment, social service level, ecological environment, and infrastructure level can significantly promote economic growth.
Du Yunzhou et al. [14] systematically analyzed how the business environment ecology promotes total factor productivity and promotes high-quality urban development from a configuration perspective based on the evaluation system of China's urban business environment. Qian Li et al. [15] established an evaluation index system of China's business environment at the provincial level from the perspectives of marketization, facilitation, rule of law and internationalization, and found that the business environment has a U-shaped nonlinear relationship of "first suppressing and then rising" to high-quality economic development: on the left side of the U-shape, it plays a role in hindering high-quality economic development due to the large amount of construction costs;After crossing the inflection point from depression to growth, the business environment plays a positive role in promoting high-quality economic development.
At the same time, ambidextrous innovation plays a positive role in regulating this U-shaped relationship. Zhang Zenglian et al. [16] used the marketization index to express the business environment, and the impact of opening up to the outside world on the relationship between scientific and technological innovation and high-quality economic development. The results show that the business environment can promote high-quality economic development through scientific and technological innovation, while opening up to the outside world to promote high-quality economic development will weaken the positive promotion effect of scientific and technological innovation.
Ao Xiu [2] evaluated the urban business environment from six dimensions: market environment, human resources, business costs, ecological environment, infrastructure and social services, and found that market environment, human resources and social services have a strong role in promoting urban economic growth.
In summary, it is of great significance to study the business environment index system, which is an important cornerstone for the study of business environment and economic development. Based on the international authoritative system, Chinese scholars continue to refine the research objects and research angles, expand the original indicators to achieve quantitative measurement of the business environment. However, at present, there are many index systems, there are differences in the scope of indicators, and the evaluation results are quite different, which is not conducive to the formation of horizontal benchmarking analysis of multiple economies or cities.
2) Study the impact of the business environment on regional economic development.
The impact of the business environment on the economy of different regions is heterogeneous. In general, different countries, different regions, different provinces, and different cities are in different business conditions, and the impact of business environment on economic development is also different. **The difference in the impact of the business environment on the economy of different regions is conducive to making more targeted development recommendations.
From the national level. Lai [6] conducted a study of 162 economies around the world and divided countries into three categories: high-income, lower-middle-income, and low-income, and found that the positive correlation between business environment and economic growth in upper-middle-income countries is the most significant. Wang et al. [5] also classified economies according to income levels, and found that the impact of business environment on economic development has a spatial spillover effect, the improvement of the business environment level of neighboring countries has a negative impact on their own economies, and the "siphoning" effect of high-income economies on neighboring economies is stronger.
Wang et al. [17] paid more attention to the impact of the business environment on the development of economic cooperation between countries. The "five-link cooperation" has improved the business environment of the cooperative countries, enhanced the convenience of financing, reduced the cost of the system, enabled the orderly and free flow of economic factors, realized the efficient allocation of resources, promoted the deep integration of the market, and promoted economic growth.
From the domestic level. Wu Shaohua et al. [13] divided China into six regions: North China, Northeast China, East China, Central South, Southwest China, and Northwest China, and found that the promotion effect of business environment improvement on economic growth was more obvious in Central South China and East China.
Qian Li et al. [15] found that most of China's eastern provinces and a few western provinces have crossed the inflection point, while the rest of the provinces are located on the left side of the inflection point, and the level of business environment in the central and western regions needs to be improved. Li Zhijun [18] divided China's cities into two categories: southern and northern, and the results show that the business environment of southern cities is better than the national average, but there are large differences in business environment between citiesOn the whole, the business environment of northern cities is lower than that of southern regions and the whole country, but the difference in business environment between cities is relatively small.
Ao Xiu [2] empirically found that the business environment of cities in eastern China is better than that of central and western regions, and the business environment of cities with high economic development level is better than that of economically backward cities, and the positive effect of business environment on urban economic growth decreases in order of eastern, central, and western regions. Zhang Lili [19] analyzed its impact on economic growth from the perspective of soft business environment. The results show that in the eastern region, the intervention has a negative impact on economic growthIn the central and western regions, the intervention has a significant positive impact on economic growth. At the same time, the degree of marketization has a significant positive impact on economic growth, and financing constraints have a significant negative impact on economic growth.
To sum up, in order to achieve sustainable and healthy economic development, at the national level, cooperation between countries should be further strengthened for mutual benefit and win-win results, which also reflects the great vision of a community with a shared future for mankind. At the same time, because the business environment has a spatial spillover effect on economic development, it is necessary to pay attention to the inhibiting effect that the optimization of the business environment in other countries may bring to China's economic development. At the domestic level, due to the imbalance in the development of China's business environment, it is necessary to increase policy investment in areas with a low level of business environment, so that they can cross the inflection point of the U-shaped relationship and realize the positive role of the business environment in economic development.