数字时代的国家治理机制:发展和安全的权衡

National Governance Mechanisms in the Digital Age:Balancing Development and Security

党的十八大以来,中国加速进入数字时代。与此同时,国家治理体系,特别是官员治理机制发生了显著变化:一是在治理方式上,从强调激励到强调监督;二是在考核内容上,从强调单一的经济指标到强调多元化指标。在提炼时代背景和两个转变的特征事实的基础上,本文建立了一个权衡发展和安全的组织经济学模型,从数字技术的角度解释了官员治理机制的变化。主要结论是:第一,发展导向的契约严格优于安全导向的契约,除非安全负外部性非常大,或者出现安全事故的概率非常高。第二,如果委托人同时注重发展和安全,一定会对代理人实行安全事故“一票否决”的考核机制。第三,数字技术导致的监督成本和发展导向之间是一种倒U型关系。当监督成本非常高时,委托人应该采取发展导向的考核机制;当监督成本属于中等程度时,应该采取多任务的考核机制;当监督成本很低时,应该采取发展导向的考核机制。第四,安全事故带来的负外部性越大,委托人越是倾向采取多任务考核机制。本文的研究对于优化官员激励机制以及统筹发展和安全提供了理论启示。

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has accelerated its entry into the digital age.At the same time, the national governance system, especially the official governance mechanism, has undergone significant changes: first, in terms of governance methods, from emphasizing incentives to emphasizing supervision;second, in terms of performance evaluation, from emphasizing a single economic indicator to emphasizing diversified indicators.To rigorously examine the changes in the governance mechanisms of officials in the digital era, we construct an organizational economic model that includes the higher-level government, who focus on both the development and the security, and subordinate officials.We compare three typical contracts: development-oriented contracts, security-oriented contracts, and multi-task contracts, and the key findings are as follows: First, a development-oriented contract is clearly preferable to a security-oriented contract, unless the security externalities are very large or the probability of a safety accident is very high.Second, if the principal cares about both development and security, she will definitely implement a performance evaluation mechanism of “one-vote veto” for safety accidents.Third, an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between the supervision cost and the development orientation.When the supervision cost is very high, the principal should adopt a development-oriented performance evaluation mechanism;when the supervision cost is moderate, a multi-task performance evaluation mechanism should be adopted;when the supervision cost is very low, a development-oriented performance evaluation mechanism should be adopted.Fourth, the greater the negative externality caused by safety accidents, the more inclined the principal is to adopt a multi-task performance evaluation mechanism to ensure that the agent does not neglect safety issues while pursuing economic development.On the contrary, if the negative externality of safety accidents is relatively small, the principal may tend to adopt a performance evaluation mechanism that pays more attention to economic development.Compared to existing literature, this paper integrates information technology with governance mechanisms, endogenizes information structures, and re-emphasizes the value of supervision.It expands the literature on incentive mechanisms and performance assessment from a dynamic perspective, arguing for the endogenous evolution of the assessment mechanism(in three stages).It also discusses a special type of nonlinear incentive mechanism, namely the one-vote veto, and demonstrates its effective scope.The research in this paper provides theoretical insights for optimizing official incentive mechanisms and for balancing development and security, and enriches the literature on Chinese official governance.