信息不对称、分成契约与超限额采伐——中国国有森林资源变化的理论分析和实证考察

Information Asymmetry,Profit-sharing Contract and Over-the-Quota Harvesting——Theory and Empirical Analysis of China's State-owned Forests

本文回顾了改革开放以来国有林业企业管理体制的演变 ,通过多任务委托代理模型探讨了这一演变过程中利润分成和采伐限额两个不相容的政府政策激励对国有林业企业经营者激励的影响 ,特别是信息不对称条件下其对木材采伐的影响 ,从而解释了国有林业企业普遍存在的超限额采伐的经济原因。通过全国 2 8个省 5次全国森林资源普查的面板数据 ,通过使用国有林业企业的平均面积作为政府与国有林业企业委托—代理关系中信息不对称的代理变量 。

The paper reviews the historical management system evolution of state forest farms. Under a multi-task principle-agent model, it analyzes the impacts of profit sharing and logging quota in state forest farms on the incentives of enterprise managers, especially the impacts of information asymmetry on timber logging and timber growth in state forest farms. Using data from 28 provinces and 5 distinct census periods, we examine what factors have lead to declines in forest growth, or equivalently, have increased the likelihood of unsustainable harvesting on China's state owned forests since the 1970 reforms, which gave increased autonomy to local forest managers. The key premise we assume, and then find to hold, in our empirical model is that the larger the information asymmetry between the state and forest enterprises, the greater is the reduction in forest volume growth and thus the less sustainable forests are managed. The area of state forests proves to be a very important predictor in unsustainable harvesting, and our results support the large, but untested, body of literature citing anecdotal evidence regarding manager behavior in large state forest holdings.