官员任期、异地交流与经济增长——来自省级经验的证据

Term Limits and Rotation of Chinese Governors:Do They Matter to Economic Growth?

1978年以来,官员治理制度中先后引入了高级官员的有限任期制度和鼓励异地交流的惯例。利用1978年至2004年间在各省(西藏除外)任职的省(直辖市、自治区)委书记和省长(包括直辖市长、自治区主席)的详细信息以及省级经济增长的数据库,本文考察了对省级高级官员的任期限制和异地交流是否以及如何影响了地方的经济业绩。文章从经验上证实,官员的任期限制和异地交流制度总体上对经济增长有相当正面的推动作用。研究进一步发现,官员任期与经济增长的关系呈现出倒U型的特征。研究还发现,官员的异地交流对经济增长也有积极的影响,但这个影响在地区之间(尤其是东西部之间)存在着明显的差异,在东部的影响大于中西部。

One of the motivation and control mechanisms established in China＇s political and bureaucratic hierarchy is an introduction of term limits and rotation system into higher level government officials. Using a panel data covering detailed information for all the provincial governors （including provincial party secretary, mayor for municipal cities, and chairman for autonomous regions） between 1978 and 2004, this paper finds a positive impact of both term limits and rotation of governors across provinces on local economic growth. It also finds that term limits and economic growth exhibit a weakly inversed U relationship. Though the rotation of governors matters to local economic growth, regional variation is observed, and the positive impact of rotated governors on local growth turned out to be more obvious in the eastern provinces than rest provinces.