信息化提高了公共政策效率吗?--基于新冠肺炎疫情准自然实验的实证分析

Has Informatization Improved the Efficiency of Public Policies?An Empirical Analysis Based on the Quasi-natural Experiment of COVID-19

文章以新冠肺炎疫情作为准自然实验,检验了中国286个地级及以上城市的政务信息化水平对疫情防控的作用,并利用2019年12月的携程客房预订履约率,检验了社会信用的交互作用。研究发现,政务信息化能够提高疫情防控的公共政策效率,政务信息化对疫情防控的作用在一定程度上依赖于当地的社会信用水平,社区层面的人口信息登记在疫情防控中起到了突出作用。使用各城市邮政局数量和电信收入作为政务信息化的工具变量、以腾讯公司编制的数字指数作为替代变量以及控制市委书记个人特征、公共部门人数和城市等级之后,基本结论保持稳健。文章的研究为提高政府治理能力和改进常态化防控效率提供了一定的启示。

As a public health emergency,Novel Coronavirus Disease(COVID-19)has a major and farreaching impact on China and the world,whilst testing the public policies and governance capacities of each country.The medical research and vaccine development cycle of COVID-19 is relatively long.Therefore,timely and effective identification and separation of COVID-19 cases through information technology has become a key task for epidemic prevention and control.The informatization of government affairs(that is,e-government)has always been an important tool for the Chinese government to improve its governance capacity,which has laid a solid foundation for the response to the epidemic.Through the government information system,cases and close contacts can be detected,tracked and isolated in a timely manner,and transmission routes can be blocked,which provides strong support for the control of the disorderly spread of the epidemic and the timely treatment of patients.Meanwhile,the implementation effect of e-government is also affected by social credit.Although local governments have set up elaborate government information systems based on big data,it is still difficult to accurately cover everyone.Therefore,the control of people can only be based on abstract information,but the accuracy of information and the execution of policies all depend on people’s credit level.Based on this quasi-natural experiment,the e-government level of 286 cities on pandemic prevention and control is tested.In addition,the fulfillment rate of Ctrip’s room reservation in December 2019 is used to represent the social credit level of each city,and the interaction effect of social credit on e-government is tested.The findings are as follows:(1)In general,e-government can improve the public policy efficiency of pandemic prevention and control.For every 0.1 increase in the e-government level,the number of confirmed cases will be reduced by 65.6,and the number of deaths per 10,000 people will be reduced by 0.008.(2)The role of egovernment in pandemic prevention and control depends on the local social credit level to a certain extent.(3)Registration of population information at the community level plays a prominent role during the control of pandemic.Using the number of post offices in each city and the revenue from telecommunication services as the instrument variables of e-government,using the digital index compiled by Tencent as an alternative variable,and controlling the personal characteristics of the Party secretary,the number of public sector employees and city rank,the basic conclusion remains stable.The findings provide some policy enlightenment to strengthen governance and improve the efficiency of regular epidemic prevention and control.