20世纪90年代中期之后,中国的基础设施存量迅猛增加,为中国的经济增长和社会发展作出了重要贡献。文章试图为理解中国的基础设施改善机制提供一个整合的理论和实证框架。研究表明:财政分权体制的确立与土地要素市场化改革的启动是促成中国基础设施起飞的关键条件。分权化经济治理模式所产生的辖区间竞争与土地融资创新分别历史性地改变了基础设施的投资需求和供给能力,尤其在城市部门。进一步,我们详细分析了显性和隐性土地财政与城市基础设施提供之间的理论逻辑,并运用资本存量法和实物存量法两种方法对相关假说进行了初步实证检验,1999～2007年的省际面板数据提供了某些支持性证据。本研究不仅有助于理解中国城市基础设施的增长,而且为理解以土地为中心的中国式分权体制提供了一个有益视角。 After the mid-1990s, China’s stock of infrastructure increased rapidly, making an important contribution to China’s economic growth and social development. The article attempts to provide an integrated theoretical and empirical framework for understanding China’s infrastructure improvement mechanism. The research shows that the establishment of a fiscal decentralization system and the initiation of the market-oriented reform of the land factor are the key conditions for China’s infrastructure to take off. Sub-regional competition and land financing innovations resulting from the decentralized economic governance model have historically changed the investment demand and supply capacity of infrastructure, respectively, especially in the urban sector. Further, we analyze in detail the theoretical logic between explicit and implicit land finance and urban infrastructure provision, and use the methods of capital stock method and physical stock method to conduct a preliminary empirical test of the relevant hypothesis. From 1999 to 2007 Inter-provincial panel data provides some supporting evidence. This study not only helps to understand the growth of urban infrastructure in China, but also provides a useful perspective for understanding land-centered Chinese decentralization.