重点高校专项支出对“双一流”大学建设促进了多少?——基于156所重点高校的绩效检验

How Much Had the Special Expenditure of Key Universities Promoted the Construction of “Double-first class” Universities?——Based on the Performance Test of 156 Key Universities

建设“双一流”大学是实现高等教育强国的重要手段。财政支出作为建设绩效提升的基础与支柱,高教财政治理体系现代化是“双一流”高校建设绩效提升的关键。针对重点高校支持计划有效性争议,利用国内156所高校1994—2019年的非平衡面板数据,采用渐进式双重差分法,以QS排名、考生满意度排名、高水平学科数量与科研经费等指标为表征,检验重点高校专项支出对“双一流”建设的促进作用。主要结论包括:(1)“211工程”与“985工程”确曾显著提升国内重点高校声望,但此后出现绩效停滞,在“双一流工程”激励下,重点高校在声望、学生满意度和经费规模等方面绩效有提升,专项间呈现“叠加效应”;(2)相比其他专项,“211工程”在顶级学科和一流学科建设上具显著激励作用;(3)重点高校建设专项存在“绩效激励递减”现象乃至产生负作用,而新专项出台则有效改善绩效;(4)重点高校建设专项仍对顶尖高校学科水平提升有激励作用而非呈现“经费饱和”,国内顶尖高校与世界顶尖高校在经费规模上存在差距等。本文研究结论对于“十四五”时期“双一流”大学建设具有启示作用。

The construction of Double-First Class universities is the necessary means to realize the power of higher education, the financial expenditure is the foundation and pillar of the construction performance improvement, and the modernization of financial governance system is the key to improve the construction performance of Double-First Class universities. Based on the dispute caused by the effectiveness of the support plan for key universities, this paper used the unbalanced panel data of 156 universities from 1994 to 2019, adopted the method of Staggered DID, and used the indicators such as QS ranking, examinee satisfaction ranking, number of high-level disciplines and research fund scale to test the promotion effect of special expenditure of key universities on the construction of “Double-First Class”. The main conclusions are as follows:(1) the “211 Project” and “985 Project” had significantly improved the reputation of domestic key universities, but since then there had been performance stagnation. Under the incentive of “Double-First Class Project”, the performance of key universities had improved in terms of reputation, student satisfaction and fund scale, and there was a “superposition effect” between projects;(2) compared with other special projects, “211 Project” had a significant incentive role in the construction of top-level disciplines and first-class disciplines;(3) there was a phenomenon of “performance incentive decline” in the construction of key universities and it even showed that the special fund had negative effects. And the introduction of new special funds could effectively improve the performance;(4) key university construction projects still play an important role in improving the discipline level of top universities, rather than showing “funding saturation”, which indicates that there is still a gap between the top universities in China and those in the world. The conclusion of this paper has enlightenment on the construction of “Double-First Class”.