Study On The Change Of Supply System For Rural Public Goods In China

Since the 1990s, with the deepening of the research of issues of agriculture, farmer and rural area, the issue of public goods supply in rural areas has been the hot topic, both in academic field and government sector. So far, the research in public goods supply in rural areas varies greatly, among which the research in the Institutional evolution of public goods supply in rural areas is of great importance.In the dissertation, based on the research achievement, the theories of neoinstitutional economics, and the research framework of institutional environment-institutional-arrangement-institutional performance, the author made a further research in the Institutional evolution of public goods supply in rural areas, and made some political suggestions on institutional innovation of public goods supply in rural areas.There are six chapters in the dissertation, the first chapter is an introduction to the research background, objective, research importance, research method, and literature review. In the second chapter, the author analyzed the following two theoretical bases, theory of public goods in rural areas and institutional evolution. The aim of the analysis is to lay a foundation for the construction of concept and theoretical framework for the dissertation. Chapter three, four and five are the main body of the dissertation. In the chapters, based on the theories and methods of neoinstitutional economics, the author explored and analyzed the evolution and performance of the system of public goods in rural areas according to the course from the collective economy, rural reform to reform of rural taxes and fees system. The six chapter is the conclusion of the dissertation.The conclusions of the dissertation are as follows.Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the evolution of the system of public goods in rural areas experienced the phase of collective economy, rural reform and reform of rural taxes and fees system. Generally speaking, the basic characteristics of the system of public goods in rural areas in these three phases are as follows. During the phase of collective economy, because of the national policy of the priority of the development of heavy industry, the input in the area of rural public goods was relatively small from the state revenue, the source of which are mainly financed by collective economy. After the introduction of rural reform, the financial source of public goods in rural areas was almost the same as in the period of collective economy, but the main source was from the farmers. After rural reform and reform of rural taxes and fees system, based on the need for coordination of the economic and social development in both urban and rural areas, our country began to enlarge its financial support to cover rural areas, and at the same time, adopt a system of "One Project One Discussion" for part of the public goods in rural areas.The system of public goods supply in rural areas is the system of benefit distribution in itself; it reflects the benefit distribution between the nation and peasants, urban and rural, industry and agriculture. So in a sense, the system evolution of public goods supply in rural areas is process of continuously adjustment for benefit distribution. Furthermore, in the new era, in order to reconstruct the system of public goods supply in rural areas, we have to adjust benefit distribution among the former three benefit bodies, and to allocate the national resources reasonably according to the principle of equality, so to promote the coordinated and balanced development of the city, countryside economy and social.The formation and system arrangement of the rural public goods supply system was the result of system evolution dominated by the government. From the analysis of the three phases in the dissertation, in each phase, the system arrangement of the rural public goods supply system was constrained by the government preferences and the national development strategy, and the transformation of the national development strategy influenced the system and policy of public goods supply in rural areas greatly. From this perspective, we can draw the conclusion that the evolution of the system in public goods supply is mandatory. Of course, during the process, induced institutional change also took its part, but it was not the main force.The public goods supply system in rural areas adopted earlier by the government would strongly affect the subsequent system evolution, which can be explained by "path dependence" theory. From the research findings of the research we can see that, from the phase of collective economy to the phase of rural reform, in spite of the great change of system environment in rural areas, the source of financial support for public goods supply were mainly from private and collective sectors, furthermore, even after the reform of rural taxes and fees system and our country adopted the policy of public financial support covering the rural areas, still, the system of "One Project One Discussion" reflects that the main financial source of public goods supply in rural areas is not mainly from the public financial sector.