官员激励、任期制与为官不为

Incentives,Term Limits and the Duty Shirking of Government Officials

针对地方政府官员在施政过程中的不作为现象,利用委托代理理论探讨任期制与官员不作为之间的关系。研究结果表明:政府官员在其政治生涯中的努力水平分布不均匀,在政治生涯前期,因受到政治晋升激励,会选择高的努力水平,以获得好的政绩,建立起高能力官员的政治声誉;在政治生涯后期,因晋升激励减弱,声誉效应下降,其努力水平会随之下降。为此,应改革官员退休制度,将官员的退休福利不仅建立在官阶基础上,也建立在官员退休前的政绩基础上。只有将政治晋升激励与经济利益激励组合起来,才能有效防止地方政府官员的不作为。

In view of the duty shirking of local government officials in the process of governance,this paper reveals the relationship between term limits and the duty shirking of officials based on the principal-agent theory. Research has shown that the effort level of government officials in political career is not evenly distributed. Because of incentives of political promotion,officials will choose the high level of effort in order to obtain good performance and establish good political reputation in the early political career. The level of effort goes down as reputation effect declines and the incentive of political promotion weakens in the last stage of political career. Therefore,we should reform the official retirement system so that official retirement benefits are not only based on the official rank but also based on the political achievement. Only by combining political incentives with economic incentives can we effectively prevent the duty shirking of local government officials.