中国式联邦主义及其争论与启示

为解释中国经济奇迹，Barry R．Weingast及其合作者构建了一个不同于传统观点的维护市场型联邦主义的理论模型，认为中国式联邦主义所诱致的地方政府问竞争改善了经济发展的环境，促进了中国经济的增长。该理论模型在被广泛接受的同时，也在学者中引起了争议和批评。学者们或者认为维护市场型联邦主义的条件不符合现实，或者认为恰恰是政治集权起着重要作用，经验性的检验则表明中国经济增长与分权的关系并不确定。这些争论向我们表明，地方分权必须要同适度的中央集权相结合，只有二者有机搭配才能够为经济发展提供良好的制度环境。

The Revelation of Federalism, Chinese Style and It's Arguments

To explain china＇s economic miracle, Barry R. Weingast and his collaborators developed a theory of market-preserving federalism which is quite different from traditional wisdom. They think that it is the inter-local government competition induced by Chinese federalism that improves the conditions of economic development and boosts China＇s economy. This theoretical model has brought some arguments and critiques while receiving great popularity. Some scholars insist that the conditions required by market-preserving federalism don＇t match the reality, and others maintain that it is political centralization that plays an important role, and that empirical tests indicate no definite relationship between china＇s economic development and decentralization. These arguments and critiques about the theoretical model suggest that decentralization must be integrated with moderate political centralization in a proper manner so as to provide a good institutional environment for economic development.