| Abstract | The paper studies the dynamic relationship between the infrastructure investment structure and economic growth, and that between the infrastructure investment structure and independent innovation under different process of economy development. The theoretical analysis shows that in the low level of economic growth, the increased proportion of general infrastructure investment is conductive to the economic growth, while it has a weak impact on the evolution of independent innovation. With the increasing level of economic growth, the increased proportion of tech-oriented infrastructure investment plays a great role in promoting the economic growth, and accelerates the evolution of independent innovation. Meanwhile, the timing for the changing within the infrastructure investment structure affects the economic growth and the evolution of independent innovation significantly. The potential for economic growth will be inhibited if the change within the structure is too early or too late. The empirical results present that the general infrastructure investment had a stronger impact on the economic growth from 1998 to 2005, while the tech-oriented infrastructure investment had a stronger effect on the economic growth from 2006 to 2013. In the perspective of the evolution of independent innovation, the tech-oriented infrastructure investment always had a stronger impact than the general infrastructure investment. Therefore, the government should take both the goals of independent innovation and economic growth into consideration while formulating the policy for the change within infrastructure investment structure, and implement the policy properly based on the relative size of the marginal effects of the two types of infrastructure investment, in order to maximize the potential for economic growth. |