Incentives Of Government Sector & Competition Among Local Governments In Higher Education

Since 1990s, when the central government started to transfer more higher education authority to provincial governments, especially since the late 1990s, when with the expansion of higher education a new system of dual management by the central and provincial governments, with the provincial government playing the principle role was established, the provincial governments started to possess more powers and more duties to control local higher education institutions, the status of subjectivity of provincial government have become increasingly prominent in higher education. Also, the competition among local governments, especially provincial governments, has been growing fiercer in the field of higher education. How to explain the competition is necessary not only for revealing and analyzing the motivation and governance capacity of local governments in higher educaion, but also for further studies of "the competition among local governments".An incentive theory in public sector was employed to analyze the times backgrounds, describe the phenomena of the competition among provincial governments in higher education, and reveal the motivations of provincial governments involved in higher education competition. This theoretical foundation also provided opportunities to highlight the deep institution source of the impacts of the existing and past competition.The local governments directly invovled in higher education resource competiton, mostly for central resources, but also for higher education market resources.Inspired by a variety of factors, Higher education competition was often intertwined with the political, economic and comprehensive strength competition among local governments.The higher education resources have become the tools of local governments to maximize their comprehensive benefits.To some extent, the higher education competition among local governments promoted the development of higher education. However, it made more negative effects, which chiefly resulted from the distortion of extrinsic incentives, namely provincial governments compete with each other in higher education aiming at their political and economic purposes; the loopholes and dificiencies of local government insentive systems designed by the central government; and the lack of intrinsic motivation from provincial governments.Under the influence of economic and political motives state governments of U.S. indirectly compete for higher education resources, which bring about some enlightment to improve the situation in China.Correction of the disortion of the extrinsic incentives that local governments face, repair of the loopholes and dificiencies of local governments incentive systems and enhancement of intrinsic motivation from local government administrators will be avenues to wipe off the negative effects of competition among local governments.Reform of the system of local governments'incentive must be in practice from three levels-the center government, the local governments, and the society.Ultimately, eliminating the negative impacts of the higher ecuction competition among local governments will rely on the reform of a higher education structure of governance.