官员在职读研与政治晋升中的激励扭曲

Officials' On-the-Job Postgraduate Education and Incentive Distortion in Political Promotion

中国政府官员热衷于在职读研。基于中国2005—2013年地级市(含副省级)市委书记的证据,本文的研究发现,拥有在职研究生学位,特别是在职博士学位的官员晋升到市委书记的速度更快,在职读研成为官员实现政治晋升的捷径。然而,上述具有在职研究生学位的市委书记并未像预期一样显著改善所服务地区的经济绩效表现,甚至在未来更可能涉及腐败案件。因而,官员在职读研很大程度上是对其政治晋升有利的镀金而非个人能力提升的真金。不容忽视的是,官员通过在职读研获取的晋升优势事实上扭曲了官员政治晋升体系中原本的能力识别机制,一定程度抑制和削弱了地方政府官员开展晋升锦标赛可能发挥的促进地区经济增长作用。官员在职读研由此成为中国政府官员政治晋升中存在激励扭曲问题的典型表征。

Chinese government officials are keen to on-the-job education. Based on study of evidences from municipal committee postgraduate secretaries of prefecture-level cities （including sub-provincial cities） of China （2005--2013）, this paper finds that those government officials who have experience in on-the-job postgraduate will get promoted earlier as compared with other officials, and officials who have on-the-job doctoral degree will get promoted even faster. In a manner of speaking, on-the-job postgraduate education is a shortcut for officials to get promoted in China＇s political system. However, the aforesaid officials at the level of municipal committee secretary who have experience in on-the-job postgraduate education did not achieve remarkable economic performance in their responsible regions as expected and were more likely to involve in corruption trials. So to speak, Chinese officials＇ on-the-job postgraduate education, to a large extent, is only a ＂gold-plating＂ tool in support of their political promotion, rather than the ＂genuine gold＂ for the sake of ability improvement. It is noteworthy that the officials＇ promotion competitiveness arises from on-the-job postgraduate education, de facto, distorts the original capability recognition system in the official political promotion mechanism and inhibits and weakens in part local government officials＇ role of promoting local economic growth in the ＂Promotion Tournament＂. Hence, officials＇ on-the-job postgraduate education is a representative case for the distorted incentives in Chinese government officials＇ political promotion mechanism.