强化问责可以提升政府绩效吗?——基于CFPS数据的断点回归分析

Can Strengthening Accountability Improve Government Performance?—A Regression Discontinuity Design Based on the Data from CFPS

【目的/意义】强化问责是否可以提升政府绩效?学界的答案仍存在争议,需要继续检验。中共十八大后党中央实施全面从严治党、强化问责,为这一问题的解答提供了自然实验的新机会。【设计/方法】基于2010~2016年的中国家庭跟踪调查数据,使用断点回归方法,以2013年中央强化问责前后中国的县级政府绩效变化为分析对象,可以检验强化问责对政府绩效的影响及其路径。【结论/发现】强化问责在短期内显著提高了政府绩效水平,政民互动过程的回应性、服务性、公平性和规范性发挥中介效应。但是,强化问责对政府绩效的影响力呈现倒U型的发展趋势,先升后降,可持续性较差。这一立足全国宏观数据和基于自然实验的分析结果,回应了学界关于问责“有效”和“无效”的争论,提供了争论成因的初步解释,并为理解强化问责对政府绩效的影响提供了时效视角。

[Purpose/Significance]Can strengthening accountability improve government performance?The answer is still controversial and needs to be tested.After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the CPC Central Committee implemented comprehensive and strict governance of the party and strengthened accountability,which provided a new opportunity for natural experiment to answer this question.[Design/Methodology]Based on the tracking survey data of Chinese families from 2010 to 2016,this paper uses the breakpoint regression method to test the impact and path of strengthening accountability on government performance by taking the changes of county and district government performance in China before and after the central government strengthened accountability in 2013 as the analysis object.[Conclusions/Findings]It is found that the implementation of strengthening accountability significantly improves government performance in the short term,and the intermediary effects of responsiveness,service,fairness and standardization of government behavior are significant.However,the influence of strengthening accountability on government performance shows an inverted U development trend,and the sustainability is poor.Based on the national macro data,the analysis based on natural experiments and the interview data of grass-roots civil servants,this paper responds to the debate on the“effectiveness”and“ineffectiveness”of accountability in academic circle,provides a preliminary explanation of the causes of the debate,and a new perspective for understanding the impact of accountability on government performance.