This paper studies the impact of Chinaʻs accelerated depreciation policy (ADP) that was enacted in 2014 on labor share. We explore a firm-level dataset from Chinaʻs industrial enterprise database and estimate the policy effects using a difference-in-differences framework. We find that the ADP apparently reduces the labor share of the treated firms compared to the control firms, which is a net effect jointly driven by the capital deepening and skill structure upgrading channels. Among these two channels, the former is dominant and has negative effects on labor share, while the latter is positively related to the labor share. We also demonstrate that the firms with less financial constraints experience a more profound capital deepening process and a larger decline in labor share after policy enactment. These results suggest that the widespread use of investment tax incentives may be one of the reasons for the decline in global labor share in recent years.

Network infrastructure is a cornerstone of Internet applications and digital economy. In this paper, we primarily evaluate the effect of broadband infrastructure on local government fiscal risk by using the enforcement of the ‘Broadband China’ Strategy (BCS) as an exogenous shock. After a simple theoretical analysis by establishing a three-department endogenous growth model, we conduct a staggered Difference-in-Differences (DID) estimation and use a panel datum of China’s 285 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019, finding that the BCS policy apparently reduces fiscal risks of the pilot cities compared to the untreated ones. This impact is achieved through two channels: the enlargement of data creation and the enhancement of data use efficiency. Moreover, we discover that this policy contributes more to cities with mature IT industry, deepened information consumption, strong innovation capabilities and flourishing cross-border e-commerce. In addition, it is demonstrated that cities with severe financial burden always benefit more from the BCS policy; meanwhile, the policy effects will spill over to surrounding districts. Finally, we find that the construction of broadband infrastructure greatly improves residents’ satisfaction with local government. Overall, this paper provides constructive insights into broadband infrastructure for diminishing local government fiscal risks in developing countries.