Does Environmental Regulation Promote the Infrastructure Investment Efficiency? Analysis Based on the Spatial Effects

Infrastructure investment plays a key role in steady economic growth. Investment in infrastructure is gradually increasing; however, large-scale infrastructure investment is also associated with efficiency problems and environmental problems, which need to be carefully examined. The entropy weight method and the Super-SBM model are implemented to measure environmental regulation and infrastructure investment efficiency, respectively; and the spatial Durbin model is applied to analyze the influence mechanism and spatial effects of environmental regulation on infrastructure investment efficiency. The results show that spatial agglomeration characteristics exist in both environmental regulation and infrastructure investment efficiency. Besides, environmental regulation can promote infrastructure investment efficiency in general, but it develops an inverted U-shaped relationship as the intensity increases. Lastly, the spillover effects of environmental regulation on infrastructure investment efficiency present a U-shaped relationship. The conclusion is that both environmental regulation and infrastructure investment efficiency in China increased from 2008 to 2020. Besides, moderate environmental regulation is beneficial to infrastructure investment efficiency and restrains spatial spillover, but strict environmental regulation appears to be the opposite. This research expands the literature on environmental regulation and production efficiency and provides a reference basis for formulating effective policies to improve infrastructure investment efficiency from the perspective of the ecological environment.