LAUSR

Abstract Infrastructure and energy services play a leading vital role in prospering an economy. Therefore, the internal influence mechanism between the two is a crucial issue that deserves the benefits of macroeconomic planning policies. By adopting the perpetual inventory method and data envelopment analysis, this paper estimates the provincial capital stock of economic infrastructure and measures the energy services of China's manufacturing industry during 2003–2017. The moderated mediation model and Bootstrap random sampling method are employed to explore the impact mechanism of infrastructure development on energy services. We find that the expansion of infrastructure will not only improve the energy services through direct effects but also through the indirect effects of promoting economic growth. The enterprise's capital circulation efficiency plays a moderation role in the mediation process. With the increase of capital circulation efficiency, the indirect effect of economic growth is decreasing. Besides the conclusion, some targeted policy suggestions are made for the government.