官员调整、政绩竞赛与技术创新

Official adjustment,achievement competition and technological innovation

本文以长三角26个城市为样本,选取地方官员调整这一独特视角,构建动态面板数据模型,全面系统地考察了官员调整对辖区内技术创新活动的影响。研究结果表明:官员调整有助于地方的技术创新,且这种影响具有预期效应。当新任市长第一学历为全日制本科或为非本地籍贯时,官员调整对技术创新的促进作用更显著;当新任市长未临近退休时,官员调整对技术创新的促进作用更大;当离任市长为长期任职时,官员调整对技术创新的促进作用更显著。研究进一步发现:官员调整对技术创新的促进作用主要来自集中换届期;进入经济结构性减速时期之后,官员调整对技术创新的促进作用更加明显。

The huge economic development has made China the world's second largest economy,but its innovation ability has always been at a relatively low level.The mismatch between innovation ability and economic strength has made China"a big country with a large GDP and a small country with innovation".This forces us to think about the following question:Is there an internal connection between official adjustment and technological innovation?The relationship between official adjustment and technological innovation has received extensive attention from scholars at home and abroad in recent years.On the one hand,some scholars believe that official adjustment is not conducive to technological innovation.On the other hand,some scholars have suggested that official adjustment can promote technological innovation.So,this paper attempts to provide a more complete explanation of the impact of official adjustments on technological innovation.The research object of this paper is to select the comprehensive technological innovation capabilities of the region.The level of officials chooses city officials(mayors).In terms of the measure of technological innovation,the number of patent application acceptance were selected.Zhou's"Political Promotion Championship Theory"explains the Chinese official behavior well.Under the traditional system of taking GDP as the sole criterion for assessing performance,economic growth is the only way for local officials to achieve political promotion.Due to the pressure of promotion,local party and government officials have invested a lot of economic and administrative resources in industries such as infrastructure construction with short cycle and quick results,rather than non-economic public affairs with long cycles and slow effects,such as technology innovation.Therefore,it can be considered that official adjustment may have a certain inhibitory effect on local technological innovation.When the government has a strong ability to intervene in the market economy,local officials have inextricable links with various economic entities,especially enterprises.At this time,the adjustment of officials will bring the following changes:First,it will break this long-established pattern of government-enterprise structure and network of interests,it requires a long time to rebuild political connections and cost a lot of economic costs.Innovation will be used by enterprises as an important strategy to cope with policy uncertainty,acquire and maintain core competitiveness.Second,it will break the original political structure and provide the possibility for those enterprises that have no political connection to obtain policy preferences and credit support,thereby creating more conditions for increasing corporate innovation investment.Third,due to differences in educational background,service experience,and personal preferences,newly appointed officials usually adopt new policies that are different from their predecessors.Fourth,technological innovation is an important factor in promoting regional economic growth and realizing the optimization and upgrading of the economic structure.Therefore,it is highly likely that officials will increase the investment in innovation to achieve the optimization and upgrading of the regional economic structure after adjusting to the new land.In addition,as the economy enters a new normal,technological innovation has gradually become a new important indicator of the performance evaluation of local officials.Therefore,under the dual incentives of politics and economy,local officials have a huge incentive to increase research investment in society and encourage technology innovation.In this regard,official adjustment is entirely possible to promote local technological innovation.This paper fully considers the personal characteristics of officials such as age,native place,education,tenure,and the influence of political and economic environments and regional differences.To this end,we construct the influence mechanism of officials adjustment to technological innovation,and put forward theoretical propositions for inspection.Furthermore,an empirical test was performed on the impact mechanism using a dynamic panel data model.Taking 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region as a sample,this paper builds a dynamic panel data model,comprehensively and systematically examine the impact of official adjustments on the scientific and technological innovation in the jurisdiction.The results of the study show that the adjustment of officials will help local technological innovation,and it has an expected effect.When the new mayor's first degree is full-time undergraduate or non-native,the influence of official adjustment on technological innovation is more significant.When the new mayor is not nearing retirement,adjustment of officials has a greater role in promoting technological innovation;When the outgoing mayor is a long-term employee,the influence of adjustment of officials on technological innovation is more significant.Further research found that the role of official adjustment in promoting technological innovation mainly comes from the period of centralized change period;after entering the period of structural slowdown of the economy,the role of official adjustments in promoting technological innovation is even more pronounced.Based on the conclusions of the study,this paper has made targeted policy recommendations in five areas.First,the exchange of cadres is an important way to realize the adjustment of officials.it should take the opportunity of centralized renewal,and use various forms to promote reasonable adjustment of officials;At the same time,it is necessary to maintain the relative stability of the cadre team,avoid large ingress and egress,and frequent adjustments.It is necessary to increase vitality through exchanges and maintain stability in an appropriate frequency.Second,we must work hard to break the"GDP-only"view of employment,and get rid of excessive reliance on GDP in the assessment of cadre exchange,fundamentally reverse the long-standing model of political performance competition.Third,improve government governance and official governance,comprehensively incorporate regional technological innovation capabilities into the official performance evaluation system,and promote the formation of a new concept of political performance and cadre communication.Fourth,further strengthen the exchange of officials,unblock the channels for cross-regional official exchanges,increase the proportion of inter-provincial exchanges of city-level cadres,and give play the role of cross-regional officials in promoting technological innovation in the adjustment.Fifth,when selecting and appointing officials,priority should be given to adjusting young and highly educated officials to areas with insufficient technological innovation capabilities or inadequate implementation of innovation-driven development strategies,giving play to their solid theory,advanced ideas and energetic advantages,and promoting local technological innovation.