寻租约束下的行政效率及其对我国行政改革的启示

On the Administrative Efficeiency under the Constraint of Rent Seekingand the Implications to the Administrative Reforms in China

本文通过经济学模型分析考察寻租行为对行政效率的负面影响。研究发现,不论是外部寻租行为还是政府部门的内部寻租行为,均会造成行政效率低下、社会产出效率下降、社会效用总量受损;但是,选择一个较大的政府规模虽然会影响全社会产出效率,却不一定引起社会效用损失,因此,我国的行政改革并不需要从压缩行政规模入手,而应当努力遏制寻租,坚持走渐进的行政改革道路。

This article intends to find out how rent-seeking behavior affects administrative efficiency in governments. Through a model, it discovers that rent-seeking activities both outside and inside government institutions will lower government administrative efficiency, decrease an economy's total output and utility. However, keeping a government scale larger than the highest efficiency level may not cause utility loss although there might be some output loss. Thus, administrative system reform in China need not start by rigidly reducing government scale but by keeping rent-seeking behavior under strict control, and it should follow a gradual reform path.