中国的大国发展道路——论分权式改革的得失

On China's Development Model:The Costs and Benefits of China's Decentralization Approach to Transition

本文从分权式改革的视角提供了一个自洽的逻辑框架,全面地分析了中国的发展道路。这个逻辑框架不仅能够分析中国前期改革的成功,也能够解释目前浮现的诸多社会经济问题。政治集权下的经济分权给地方政府提供了发展经济的动力,尤其是完成了地方层面的市场化和竞争性领域的民营化。但是,内生于这种激励结构的相对绩效评估又造成了城乡和地区间收入差距的持续扩大、地区之间的市场分割和公共事业的公平缺失等问题。由于中国的渐进式分权改革在很大程度上可以看作一个中央政府主导和控制下的机制设计问题,所以,在认清中国分权式改革的得失的基础上,正确地设计合理的改革方略,对于下一阶段改革的成功是至关重要的。如此,中国就可能走出一条独特的大国发展道路。

This paper provides a coherent framework to fully account for China＇ s development model, both the successes and the failures of the China＇ s decentralization approach to reform. The combination of political centralization and economic decentralization provides local governments with enough incentives to develop local economies, in particular the incentives to promote markets and pfivatization locally. In the meantime, the relative evaluation-based incentive schemes lead to inter-regional market segmentation, increasing inter-regional development gaps and unequal provision of certain public goods. The success of early-stage reform can be attributed to the benefits of the decentralization approach. The next stage reform should minimize the costs associated with the approach. China＇ s gradualist reform can be taken as a problem of mechanism design by the central government. So, after identifying the costs and benefits of the decentralization approach, it is essential to have a reasonable design of the next-stage reform package.