地方政府竞争与公共服务:基于中部六省数据的实证研究(1996～2005)

改革开放以来,地方政府在中央放权的利益诱导下加剧了竞争,这客观上推动了GDP增长,同时,也带来诸多问题.新一届政府提出了经济与社会均衡发展的理念,在公共服务领域增加投入、提升质量.由于中央政府掌握着财政资源分配和官员升迁的决定权,中央的政策风向标直接影响到地方政府的行为选择.某些地方将公共服务作为政府间竞争的新增长点,试图以此提升竞争绩效.以此为背景,通过对地方政府竞争进行政治和市场维度的二元划分,构建起相关的模型和指标体系.对数据进行标准化处理后,通过统计排序对中部六省从1996至2005年问的竞争绩效和公共服务水平进行评估和比较,进而利用最小二乘法(OLS)建立回归模型,分析不同变量之间的相关性.研究的主要发现包括: (1)各省在政治和市场维度竞争上的表现存在一定差异; (2)各省公共服务水平在2002年之后逐渐趋同; (3)经济发展水平与公共服务水平不存在显著的相关性; (4)公共服务水平的改进有助于提升当地政治维度竞争绩效,而政治维度的竞争优势反过来又有助于推动公共服务水平的提高,两者构成一个可持续的良性循环.

Competition and Public Service of Regional Government: a Study of the Six Provinces in Central China

The loosening of the central government control during the decades since the opening up policy,while contributing to the increase of the GDP of the provinces,has caused numerous problems too.To solve these problems, the new administration has proposed a balanced development of society and economy by means of more investment in public services.The quantity and quality of the public services by the regional government,however,is used,or rather misused,as a measure for rivaling for the favor from the central government.The paper,based on studies of the six central provinces,reveals that these provinces have great differences in the capacity for competition,their public service levels have been reached almost the same height since 2002,and the regional government's public service and the performance capacity are proportionately interrelated.