| The government plays an important role in the allocation of public resources, which is subject to the externalities of public resources. The relationship between central and local governments has a great impact on government’s decision-making, and thus to a great extent, affects the efficiency of public resources allocation. In30years after the founding of new China, the relationship between central and local governments always wanders in the cycle of "centralization-decentralization", which often results in low efficiency of public resources. Since the reform and opening-up, decentralization became the melody of adjusting the relationship between central and local governments. In the90s, Although the system of tax distribution, vertical management of state-owned commercial banks, had been taken up, a mess after decentralization is still not avoided. There are many examples in the field of transportation. Great achievements were obtained in transportation infrastructure development in our country. At the same time, local governments were scrambling to the construction of roads, railways, airports, ports, and relevant departments of the central government also failed to play the role of constraints. So it led to some phenomenon of unreasonable configuration of public resources, such as the redundant construction in China’s transportation infrastructure development, and local debt traffic debt which occupies a significant share by traffic debt began to swell. Because transportation infrastructure occupies a large amount of social resources, so these unreasonable phenomenon will bring great influence on China’s economic and social development. For this, a wide range of decentralization as it before the reform and opening up is already useless, because it has been proved to be wrong by history. How to optimize configuration of the power between central and local governments so as to realize reasonable allocation of public resources has become one important subject worth studying to our government governance.Power is a core concept in the relationship between central and local governments. For this concept, the paper has formed the understanding as the following three aspects: First, based on the investigation to the history, it is easy to find the power from centralization to decentralization covers most of economic power during30years after the founding of new China. It also gives us an illusion, as absolute centralization or absolute decentralization, where the power looks like an integral whole. However, this paper argues that power should be classified. Discuss centralization or decentralization, which should be aimed at specific item in terms of power. In fact, in the same period, the changes of the relationship between central and local governments are often taking both devolution and concentration. It is not a one-way process. It is a two-way process, and a power rescaling process. Second, time and space are the two basic dimensions of material movement. From the perspective of time and space to realize the configuration of power on the view of subdividing power, is helpful to reveal the nature of central and local government power configuration form, and found the nature reason for the problem of relationship between central and local governments in public resource allocation. Power has attribute of time and space, and is embodied as scale of space and time. The scale of space and time of power include space scale and time scale of power, and it is respectively used to characterize and measure space attribute and time attribute of power. The spatiotemporal nature of power is specified into the spatiotemporal natures of power subject and power object respectively. The space attribute of power subject embodies in its space scale, and refers to the power’s capacity of jurisdiction scope of space. The space attribute of power object embodies in its space scale, and refers to the power’s main influence of scope of space. In the case of the power on planning of national highway network, the power subject is National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Transport, the object is highway network. The space scale of both power subject and object are the countrywide. The time attribute of power subject embodies in its time scale, and refers to time range which the power subject can effectively exercise the power, such as term of office of local government administrative heads. The time attribute of power object embodies in its time scale, and refers to the time range of its objective existence, such as the duration of transport planning and the deadline of local government debt. Third, this paper argues for the understanding of the centralization and devolution and decentralization should not ignore the spatiotemporal natures of power. From the perspective of time and space, the "centralization" refers to all or most of some kind of power belongs to power subject with spatial scale of countrywide."Devolution" refers that on the premise of the space scale of power subject which can determine the chief executive’s appointment and removing is countrywide, all or most of some kind of power object’s spatial scale changes from countrywide to local."Decentralization" refers that on the premise of the space scale of power subject which can determine the chief executive’s appointment and removing is local, all or most of some kind of power object’s spatial scale changes from countrywide to local, just as central government transfers its power to the local government which is democratically elected.Based on the above understanding, the paper used transportation economics theory, public economics theory, space-time economic theory formed theoretical framework based on the spatiotemporal nature of power, and analyzed the influence mechanism of different power allocation forms between central and local government to public resource configuration. In conclusion, the main content of the thesis includes the following several aspects:First, by reviewing the previous research, combing the literature, the paper founded that most of the existing theoretical analysis framework about relationship between central and local governments always debate on "centralization" or "devolution". These theoretical analysis framework is lack of guiding significance to solve real problems. The first generation of the theory of fiscal federalism point out that public goods can be divided into national public goods and local public goods according to the benefit scale. That national public goods are supplied by local government will produce positive externalities, which is easy to cause the free-rider behavior of local government in the process of national public goods’supply, and leading to the shortage of national public goods’supply. The central government can internalize the positive externality of national public goods, so the central government should be responsible for the national public goods’supply. Effective supply of local public goods must meet the local needs, but central government’s decision often lead to the identity of supply, not considering the preferences of different places. Compared with central government, local governments are closer to the local public, and have better understanding of the needs of the local public, so the local government should be responsible for the supply of local public goods. But the first generation of the theory of fiscal federalism has a default, which is that government always take the whole social welfare maximization as the goal. However, public choice theory has already proved that the government is made up of government officials, their interests are not always consistent with the social welfare maximization. This makes the first generation of fiscal federalism theory can’t explain very well the phenomenon of inefficient allocation of public resources in many places. Although Qian and Weingast (1997) as a representative of economists put forward the theory of second generation fiscal federalism, and questioned the first generation of fiscal federalism theory’s hypothesis that government always take the whole social welfare maximization as the goal. The theory of second generation fiscal federalism introduced government officials’incentive factors, and enhanced the explanatory power for Chinese practice. To further explore the incentives of local government we found it is closely related to the sources of power. However, the second generation of the theory of fiscal federalism only focuses on the different levels of government functions and the efficiency of the financial tools configuration, but ignore the source of the power of the local government. For this, Ostrom’s research has made the further perfect. It systematically analyzed system performance of centralization and devolution from the perspective of transaction cost, and on this basis, proposed the theory of "polycentric governance". Main viewpoints of "polycentric governance" include:first, each local government can be in a specific geographical area within the scope of authorization to exert important independent authority to formulate and implement rules, and can sign the contract with other national or a national public institutions. This makes public goods supply possible to get economies of scale. Second, local government officials in one jurisdiction of a unit can’t control the career development of another’s official. Regular elections give people a chance to choose good officials who they believe can provide good public goods and services to them, or at least to punish those who did not do their job. The official legal interpretation or jurisdiction disputes among different local official should be handed over to the court which is out of administrative hierarchy. However "polycentric governance" theory is lack of consideration of externality of local government behavior after the incentive compatibility of the local government and the local public is achieved, also ignored the central government’s supervisory role. Based on previous studies, this paper will put forward a framework from the perspective of space and time, to systematically answer the above question.Second, the paper combed the evolution of power configuration forms between central and local government in detail from several aspects, such as politics and economy, since the founding of our country, and the corresponding allocation of public resource.Third, the paper uses transportation economics theory, public economics theory, time-space economy theory and so on, to built an analytic framework which is based on space-time attribute of power. The paper further points out that the essence of unreasonable public resource configuration is the failure that achieve space-time attribute matching of power subject and object. Through research, this paper found that based on space-time attribute matching of power subject and object, central and local power’s rescaling may contribute to the reasonable public resource configuration. The core of the thesis frameworks:first, centralization can achieve space attribute matching of power subject and object on nationwide transportation infrastructure supply, and it helps to improve the efficiency of public resources allocation, but hard to achieve space attribute matching of power subject and object on local transportation infrastructure supply. Devolution enhances the space attribute matching degree of power subject and object on local transportation infrastructure supply, and it helps to improve the efficiency of public resources to a certain extent, but its still exist defects in the power of the chief executive’s appointment and removing. Decentralization can make up for the defect of devolution, and helps to further improve the efficiency of public resources allocation, but difficult to achieve the space attribute matching of power subject and object on the supervision to negative externality of local government’s decision. Central monitoring can realize the space attribute matching of power subject and object on the supervision to negative externality of local government decision, and helps to improve the efficiency of public resources.Fourth, the paper analyzes the evolution process of the relationship between central and local governments in France, and verifies the interpretation framework. The paper also points out that the reasonable configuration of central and local government’s power needs reasonable division of central and local governance on the basis of the effective integration of decentralization and central supervision. The paper analyzes the historical evolution of the relationship between central and local governments in Japan after world war II, and verifies that the "special transfer payments" can influence local government’s decisions, which affected the rationality of the allocation of public resources. It also verifies that enhancing supervision of central government after decentralization can avoid unreasonable public resources allocation, such as local government debt to a certain extent.Fifth, the paper focuses on the power configuration between central and local government in the development of transportation infrastructure of our country, and allocation of public resources. The paper makes empirical analysis on the relationship between power configuration and allocation of public resources. It also verifies the paper’s interpretation framework. Based on the analysis of China’s situation, the paper puts forward the direction of the power configuration between central and local government in China, which includes:China should realize the reasonable division of power between central and local governments in supply of transportation infrastructure, and should further improve the system of NPC at the grass-roots level and realize incentive compatibility between the local government and the public in a larger extent, so as to further strengthen the legitimacy of the central government’s supervision on local governments. |
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