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Government Quality, Public Expenditure And Residents’Subjective Well-being

Posted on:2015-01-14Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:L Y HeFull Text:PDF
GTID:1109330428466119Subject:Business Administration
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The fundamental objective of governmental public policies is to promote social welfare. As for most residents, happiness is a main objective of life even if it is not the unique objective thereof. As an important index for people’s livelihood, the subjective well-being of residents has obtained wide attention. In recent years, rapid increase has been continuously maintained in economy of China, while stagnation of national happiness appears with the economic increase and even a trend of decrease appears. Conception of Chinese governments at all levels begins to be turned to people first and attention to subjective well-being of residents as promoted by the "happiness stagnation". Scholars have studied the influences of income, income inequality and houses or the like on the subjective well-being of residents in China and have put forward corresponding policies and suggestions to governments. However, starting from the governments themselves, there are relatively few research literatures on subjective well-being of residents. In China, economy is of a typical government-oriented type, wherein the governments monopolize a lot of resources and conduct control and intervention on market very frequently. Therefore, it is very valuable to study influences of governments on the subjective well-being of residents in China. In the paper, action mechanisms of governments on the subjective well-being of residents are researched from three angles including government quality, public expenditures and public goods.Firstly, influences of government quality on the subjective well-being of residents are researched in the paper. The government quality includes two dimensions comprising governmental technical quality (administrative efficiency, supervision quality, legal governance level and corruption control) and democratic quality (expression degree of public opinions and degree of political stability), which mainly affects the subjective well-being of residents through the influences on economic increase, social trust and public expenditure structures. In view of unbalanced regional development in China, samples are divided into samples in the eastern area and in the middle-western area in the paper. It is shown through empirical research that the governmental technical quality mainly influences the subjective well-being of residents in the middle-western area and the governmental democratic quality influences that in the eastern area. It is shown in further research that the governmental technical quality influences the subjective well-being of residents with low income and rural residents, while the governmental democratic quality mainly influences the subjective well-being of those with high income and urban residents.Secondly, influences of the government quality on inequality of the subjective well-being of residents are researched in the paper. Public power is mastered by governmental departments and thus a person working in the department is granted with a certain right of discretion as an "agent". Therefore, corruption and bribe acceptation may be conducted by staffs in public departments and they are probably provided with special treatment in children’s education, obtaining some rare goods or chances and residence, medical treatment and transportation, etc. For this reason, the welfare level of staffs in public departments is higher than that of staffs in non-public departments. The subjective well-being of residents in the paper is used to measure the overall welfare level including dominant welfare and implicit welfare. It is shown in research that the welfare level of staffs in public departments in China is prominently higher than that of non-public departments. It is found in the paper through the establishment of theoretical models and empirical researches that the improvement of the governmental governance level can bring restrictions on behaviors of people working in public departments and can create good social and economic conditions for people working in non-public departments, thus narrowing the welfare inequality among departments.Thirdly, influences of the governmental public expenditures on the subjective well-being of residents are researched in the paper. During China’s transformation, the supply of public goods for medical treatment and social security is severely worsened, influencing the subjective well-being of residents severely. The expansion of public expenditures can reduce residents’motivation in prudential saving and increase the initiative consumption trend of the residents. However, governmental organizations and officials have a trend of pursuing for maximization of their own objectives and may conduct corruption or the like in decision of public expenditures to fly their own kite, resulting in the decreased expenditure efficiency and structural imbalance as well as other problems. Therefore, the government quality is incorporated into the research scope during the research of influences of public expenditures on the subjective well-being of residents in the paper. Even when the governmental quality is controlled, there are still prominent influences of the public expenditures on the subjective well-being of residents in China. Very prominent promotion effects are brought by educational expenditures, medical health expenditures and social security expenditures as well as other social expenditures to the subjective well-being of residents in China. It is found in further research that the public expenditures mainly influence the subjective well-being of groups with relatively low income.At last, environment quality reflects the government quality and structure of public expenditure, influences of environmental governance on the subjective well-being of residents are researched in the paper. Health and economic losses are brought by serious environmental pollution problems in China at present to residents. Does the environmental governance influence the subjective well-being of residents in China? It is found through research in the paper that important influences are brought from of the working and living environments of residents to their subjective well-being and residents working and living in a better environment will feel happier. Air pollution brings prominently negative influences to the subjective well-being of urban residents. The higher urban sulfur dioxide discharge load, smoke discharge load and output of raise dust from construction and demolition will result in the decrease of the subjective well-being of residents. Secondly, the inequality of environmental pollution does not exist in China temporarily. There is no big difference in influence degree of air pollution on the happiness of groups at different ages, educational levels and social and economic positions. At last, a "subjective well-being method" can be developed with a regression equation of environmental goods and income to the subjective well-being to assess the values of environmental goods. It is found through research with this method in the paper that a resident is willing to pay837.81Yuan for the air environment, namely that the compensation with the amount of837.81Yuan shall be made to the residents for additional discharge of1-ton pollutants if the subjective well-being of residents is kept constant.
Keywords/Search Tags:Subjective well-being, Government quality, Public expenditure, Environmental public goods, Environment valuation
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