为发展而竞争:地方政府多维度竞争的激励机制分析

Competition for development: an analysis of the incentive mechanism of local governments’ multi-dimensional competition

地方政府竞争在我国经济从数量增长到质量发展过程中起着极其核心的作用。从“为增长而竞争”的单一任务维度到“为高质量发展而竞争”的多维任务维度,引入公共选择领域中的竞赛成功函数,在一个前后一致的逻辑框架下建立理论模型,讨论地方政府竞争机制的有效性及作用机理。研究结论表明,不考虑多维度竞争绩效的测度成本差异,前者“为增长而竞争”的激励模式是后者地方政府“为高质量发展而竞争”激励模式的一个特例。聚焦新的发展阶段,地方政府多维竞争机制同样具有一维竞争机制信息需求量少的优势,与单一维度竞争机制相比,满足一定任务维数和获胜维数条件的合理多维竞争机制设计能够适应当前全面推动高质量发展的目标要求,更进一步提高地方政府总的努力投入水平。在对称纯策略均衡假定下,地方政府存在着同时获胜的可能性,需要根据任务目标进行奖励结构优化与匹配,在任务维数过多、资金负担较为宽松的场景,适当增加获奖数量,使地方政府从竞争中获益;在需要短期内见效的任务场景,减少获奖数量,确保地方政府集中力量快速取得成效。地方政府的异质性特征不会改变研究结论的稳健性,却会降低地方政府总的努力投入水平,对机制设计提出更高要求。基于模型的前提假定和均衡结论,提出合理设置任务维度、权衡考核奖励数量、统一考核机制指标和缩小差异均衡发展等建议,以期更好发挥地方政府多维度竞争机制的激励效力,为经济高质量发展阶段“中国之治”何以管用提供理论解释和完善路径。

Local government competition plays an extremely central role in the process of China’s economic development from quantity growth to quality improvement.From the one-task dimension of‘competition for growth’to the multi-task dimension of‘competition for high-quality development’,this paper introduces the contest success function in the field of public choice,establishes a theoretical model under a consistent logical framework,and discusses the effectiveness and function of the local government competition mechanism.The results show that without considering the measurement cost difference of multi-dimensional competitive performance,the former,i.e.,the incentive model of‘competition for growth’,is actually a special case of the latter,i.e.,the incentive model of‘competition for high-quality development’.Focusing on the new development stage,the multi-dimensional competition mechanism of local governments also has the advantage of less information demand of the one-dimensional competition mechanism.Compared with the one-dimensional competition mechanism,the reasonable multi-dimensional competition mechanism design that meets certain task dimension and winning dimension conditions can adapt to the current goal of promoting high-quality development in an all-round way,and further improve the total effort level of local governments.Moreover,under the assumption of symmetrical pure strategy equilibrium,local governments have the possibility of winning at the same time.It is necessary to optimize and match the reward structure according to the task objectives.In the scenario with more task dimensions and loose financial burden,the number of winners can be increased appropriately to make local governments benefit from the competition.In the scenario with short-term effectiveness,the number of winners can be reduced to ensure that local governments concentrate their efforts to achieve results quickly.In addition,the heterogeneity of local governments will not change the robustness of the research conclusion,but will reduce the level of the total effort of the local governments,and put forward higher requirements for the mechanism design.Based on the premise assumption and equilibrium conclusion of the model,the paper puts forward some suggestions,such as setting up the task dimension reasonably,weighing the number of evaluation rewards,unifying the evaluation mechanism indicators and narrowing the difference and balanced development,in order to better exert the incentive effect of the multi-dimensional competition mechanism of local governments,and to provide a theoretical explanation and perfect path for how the‘governance of China’works in the high-quality stage of economic development.