局部性改革的逻辑:理论与中国农村市场发展和商业环境的案例

The Logic of Partial Reform:Theory and Evidence of Market Development and Business Environment in Rural China

本文利用中国乡村的经验证据,对发展中国家普遍存在的局部性(经济)改革(Partial Reform)现象进行了分析。和现有文献所不同的是,本文着重分析地方官员而不是国家一级的政治精英在局部性改革中所扮演的角色。本文的结论是,给定中央政府的改革方案,地方官员因为拥有政治权力,可以选择性地实施那些只对他们自身利益有关的改革措施,而对那些可能会减少寻租机会,或削弱他们的权力基础并进而威胁其未来寻租机会的改革措施,地方官员会反对或阻挠,从而造成不同内容和性质的改革措施进展参差不齐的所谓局部性改革现象。随着改革的进展,原来支持和推动改革的力量可能会转而成为进一步改革的障碍。

In this paper we reexamine the partial reform problem sweeping across developing countries. In contrast to existing accounts attributing the existence of partial reform to actors at national level, we argue the prominence of the role played by local officials who take advantage of their political power to manipulate the reform strategy to seek rents. Given a whole set of reform from the center, local officials are only willing to implement reforms which will benefit them first and foremost, and in the meantime oppose reforms which are likely to reduce their opportunities of rent-seeking or to deprive of their de facto power.