省以下多样化放权策略与经济增长

The Lower-provincial Diversified Delegation Strategies and Economic Growth

县域经济发展是中国经济成功的一个重要支撑,调动县(市)政府为增长而竞争的积极性是实现县域经济发展的成功经验。但在县域经济发展中,一个现象值得重视,即县域经济发展的同时县域之间差距依然非常显著,如何在保持县域经济发展中实现县域经济的稳定收敛,最终实现平衡充分发展,是新阶段实现城乡融合发展和畅通国内大循环和国际国内双循环亟待研究的问题。本文基于中国各省自2002年开始为发展县域经济创造性实施放权改革这一自然实验,从放权改革视角识别县域经济发展的有益经验。研究发现:放权领域的数量越多,越有利于经济增长;在放权领域数量既定情况下,先在行政领域实施放权要比先在财政领域实施放权,更有利于经济增长;相比较发达地区,在欠发达地区实施放权改革,对经济增长的促进效应更大。本文的研究发现不仅为新阶段实现县域经济的平衡充分发展提供了改革思路,而且为丰富两代分权理论提供了新证据,为分权增长效应实证结果的不一致提供了一种新解释。

The development and growth of county economy is an important aspect of China’s economic success,which provides robust support for achieving the victory of poverty alleviation,revitalization of the countryside and the development of urban-rural integration.The lesson drawn from this is that each province encourages the county government to compete for growth by delegating power to the county government.However,the economic development gap among counties has not shown a steady trend of convergence during the process.In this paper,the diversified delegation strategies practices in China’s provinces since 2002 are chosen as the natural experiments for studying this phenomenon.Based on the sorting and analysis of the delegation reform documents in each province,the diversified delegation strategies in each province are divided into the following types:the differences in the number of delegation areas,the differences in the selection of delegation areas and the differences in the sequence of delegation areas.The paper explores whether the development differences among county economies are due to the differences in the number of delegation areas,and whether they are due to the differences in the selection of delegation areas and the differences in the sequence of different areas given the same number of delegation areas.On this basis,the formation mechanism of growth effect differences of delegation strategies is identified from the perspective of finance.In order to eliminate the endogeneity problem,the instrumental variable method and propensity score matching-difference in differences(PSM-DID)method are chosen in the empirical study.Two findings are obtained from the study.Firstly,the more areas of delegation is,the more it will contribute to the promotion of county-level economic growth,and this effect is more salient in less developed counties with poorer fiscal conditions.Secondly,given a particular number of delegation areas,the selection of delegation areas and their sequences are of great significance.Specifically,if only one area can be chosen for delegation,the choice of the administrative areas is more conducive to economic growth than the choice of the fiscal areas;if both types of areas are chosen for delegation,choosing the administrative areas first and then the fiscal areas for delegation will be more conducive to economic growth.The policy-related suggestions made based on the above research findings are as follows.Firstly,deepening the reform of delegation is an important way to maintain and develop the county economy.The direction of deepening the reform is to push the reform of delegation to more areas under the centralized and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China.Secondly,given limited policy resources,different delegation strategies can be selected in line with the development level of different regions.For economically underdeveloped counties,the delegation reform can be intensified.At the same time,the ability of these county governments to take over the delegated power need to be improved so that the delegation effect can be brought into greater play.Thirdly,when delegating powers to county governments,attention should be paid to the selection and sequence of delegation areas.It is always better to first delegate powers in administrative areas than in fiscal areas,and on this basis,great importance should be attached to the content of delegating powers.This study is innovative in terms of the following three aspects.Firstly,within the framework of the classical decentralization theory,the research on delegation is expanded to the number of delegation areas,the selection of delegation areas and the sequence of delegation areas,which enriches the empirical evidence of the two generations of decentralization theories.Secondly,based on the subnational diversified delegation reform practices in China,the paper identifies the fiscal mechanism formed by the difference in growth effects of the delegation strategies.Thirdly,the research creatively constructs the instrumental variables of the delegation strategies,which effectively solves the endogeneity problems faced by the empirical research based on the classical decentralization theory.The deficiency in this research is that the provincial difference in the content of delegating powers,which is particularly noteworthy in the administrative area,is not taken into account here.This will count as a direction of our follow-up research.