Research On Basic Public Services Equalization Among Regions And Financial System Reform

To realize the equalization of regional basic public services is one of the most significant approaches to implement the coordinated development of regions and share development goals.As is known to all,China is a country with a vast territory,regional differences and enormous development gaps.Since the reform and opening up,the constantly expanding regional disparity has become one of the prominent problems that requires the country‘s high attention and painstaking efforts,and the national ?The Ninth Five-Year Plan? explicitly proposed to regard narrowing regional disparities as an important goal for economic and social development.Since then,the country successively introduced a series of major regional development strategies,such as China western development,revitalization of the old industrial base in northeast China,rise of central China,so as to promote the coordinated development of these regions.It is indeed a vital approach to narrow regional gaps by relying on the support of national and local regional development strategies and related policies to stimulate the development of less developed regions.But it is necessary to recognize that,no matter what kind of regional development strategy and policy is taken,regional development gaps will be ever lasting,and amid the background of the increasingly thorough de velopment of economic agglomeration,economic development gaps between regions will be widened further.From a worldwide perspective,any big country with a vast territory will face the problem of relatively large regional development gaps.It is fully appreciated that the imbalance of regional development is a universal rule,so the Report of the 17 th National Congress of CPC clearly put forward to take the important approach of ?realizing the equalization of basic public services and promoting the rational flow of elements? so as to achieve the coordinated development of regions.That is,although it is hard to eliminate the long-standing economic development gap of all regions,but the government must not make the residents of different regions enjoy basic public services with great disparity due to the different levels of economic development in different regions.At present,the differences of the basic level of public services among different regions of China mainly result from the gaps of the level of inter-regional economic development.Since the gaps of the level of economic development in different regions are relatively large,there also exist huge differences in inter-regional government financial resources.In economically underdeveloped or financially weak regions,the local governments find it hard to bear the high-level and high-quality basic public services.Definitely,this issue is also closely related to China‘s financial system.After the reform of the tax-sharing fiscal system in 1994,financial resources were more concentrated to the governments of higher levels,the grass-roots local governments seem to be in straitened circumstances in terms of their remaining disposable financial resources after tax sharing,and must rely on the superior financial capital support by means of transfer payment.While the supply administrative power of the overwhelming majority of basic public s ervice projects goes down to the grass-roots local governments.Therefore,it is obligatory to deepen the reform of the financial system,especially the reform of the transfer payment system,in order to realize the equalization of regional basic public services.The gaps between the level of economic development and the basic level of public services in China‘s different regions are not merely manifested among the three regions of the East,the Middle and the West as well as all provinces,and within t he internal part of a province,and there also exist relatively large gaps in different regions.Guangdong is the most economically powerful province in our country,but it is also faced with such problems as imbalanced regional development,too large gap between the rich and the poor,and huge differences in basic public services.This paper carries out an empirical study on the economic and social development data of 21 cities in Guangdong Province between 2000 and 2014,and it mainly analyzes the following four questions: first of all,the current status of equalization of basic public services among prefecture-level cities of Guangdong Province;secondly,the policy effects brought about by the design of the transfer payment system of financial funds below the provincial level of Guangdong Province in promoting the balance of regional financial capacity and achieving the equalization of basic public services;furthermore,the policy effects of Guangdong Province since it has implemented the reform measures of promoting the equalization of basic public services in 2009,especially the reform of the financial system,that is,whether relevant policies have indeed played a role in promoting the equalization of basic public services;finally,consider how to further adjust and perfect the fiscal system below the provincial level in China by referring other countries‘ reform experience in the equalization of public services so as to achieve the purpose of promoting the equalization of regional basic public services.It's main idea is as follows:In the first place,this paper systematically presents the concepts and basic theories associated with the equalization of basic public services.Proceeding from the concepts of ?public goods‘,?public services‘,?basic public services‘,?equality of basic public services‘,the paper clearly defines the basic connotation of ?equalization of regional basic public services?.That is to say,the ?basic public services‘ is clarified as the projects of basic public services that must be provided by the go vernment in order to protect individuals‘ most basic rights of survival and development.The ?equalization of regional basic public services‘ refers to that the government must ensure that residents of different regions enjoy basic public services of the basically consistent level,and in other words,the government must gradually narrow the gap of basic public services enjoyed by residents of different regions.The necessity to realize the equalization of basic public services has been expounded in a relatively systematic manner in the public goods supply theory,modern welfare economics theory and public finance theory.The primary target of the modern public finance and the major function of the government is to meet the demand of the public and provide basic public services.China‘s reform of the financial system also sets the goal of establishing public finance,and strives to provide a high le vel of basic public services for the justice of the whole society.Moreover,in light of theoretical analysis,this paper evaluates and analyzes the gaps of basic public services among 21 cities of Guangdong Province at the prefecture level and abo ve.In China,large gaps in the aspect of basic public services exist both among the three regions of the East,the Middle and the West as well as all provinces,and in different regions within the internal part of each province.There exist abundant academic achievements with regard to the equalization of basic public services,and most of the research results are carried out with the gaps among different provinces in basic public services as the object,and few research achievements touch upon the equalization of basic public services among different regions within a particular province.Therefore,this paper conducts a comprehensive evaluation and analysis of the average difference in Guangdong Province between 2000 and 2014 from the perspective of regional basic public services.As for the specific content of basic public services,the paper will limit its research perspective to six aspects,namely basic education,social security,health care,public-interest facilities,cultural sports and ecological environment,determine the weight of each basic public service by means of the relatively general evaluation index system and entropy method,and measure and evaluate the regional disparity and historical evolution of each basic public service by making use of coefficients of variation and other specific statistical indexes.The research finds that,although the overall level of basic public services in Guangdong Province has been enhanced to a relatively large extent in recent years,there has still been significant regional differences in basic public services.Most obviously,there shows an obvious state of gradient development in basic public services among the Pearl River Delta in a narrow sense,West and East Guangdong and mountain areas of North Guangdong.Therefore,not only countries should try to resolve the issue of relatively large gaps among different regions and provinces in respect of basic public services,all provincial governments should also take painstaking efforts to solve the issue of relatively large gaps within the internal parts of the administrative area under their respective jurisdictions.Thirdly,the paper makes an empirical analysis of the impact of the financial system on the development level of basic public services.In recent years,China has constantly advanced the reform of regulating financial resources at all levels of finance and redefining the scope of powers or authority of office,etc.,especially in intensifying the financial transfer payment.These reform measures have greatly boosted the financial support capability of less developed areas.However,from the fiscal operations under the provincial level,several problems are still quite prominent,for instance,there exist too large gaps among different regions in the aspect of fiscal capacity,the level of financial transfer payment tends to be low,etc.By analyzing the economic development level,fiscal capacity,scale and structure of financial transfer of 21 cities of Guangdong Province at the prefecture level and above,this paper,by means of panel regression analysis,carries on the empirical analysis of the main reasons for the differences in the development level of regional basic public services from the level of regional economic development,transfer payment,local fiscal capacity and financial balance,etc.The empirical analysis indicates that the level of economic development is the most significant factor in determining the level of basic public services of all regions,that is,the city with a high level of economic development will have better basic public services as well.The provincial financial transfer payment has exerted a certain effect in relieving the gaps of fiscal capacity among different cities and narrowing the differences of basic public services,but it still has comparatively large gaps with the goal of promoting the equalization of basic public services.This also suggests that in order to realize the equalization of basic public services,it is required to push forward the reform of the financial system,and especially,it is necessary to accelerate the reform of the transfer payment system at the provincial level and below while advancing the reform of the central financial transfer payment system.Furthermore,this paper makes a systematic presents the policies of Guangdong Province in recent years to boost the equalization of basic public services,and carries on the evaluation and analysis of the effects in implementing relevant policies,and on this basis,the author puts forward the policy recommendations in pushing forward the reform of the financial system under the provincial leve l so as to achieve the equalization of regional basic public services.Since 2009,Guangdong Province has successively introduced several files on advancing the equalization of basic public services,and strengthened the supervision and inspection of guaranteeing basic public services in all places.These measures play a crucial role in comprehensively enhancing the overall level of basic public services of various regions of Guangdong Province and the whole province,the local residents become increasingly satisfied with basic public services and a rising number of people are enjoying the fruits of reform and development.While Guangdong Province‘s policies have obtained a series of important achievements by pushing forward the equalization of basic public services,there are some problems as well,and the most prominent one is that it fails to effectively narrow the gap of basic public services among different regions,that is,it fails to successfully achieve the goal of equalization of regional basic public services.The reason principally lies in that relevant policies fail to touch upon the financial system,and are not able to provide financial guarantee for the basic public services of less developed areas through reasonable arrangements of financial tr ansfer payment.Finally,the living examples of Guangdong Province suggest that,to realize the equalization of basic public services requires to deepen the reform of the financial system.The central finance and provincial finance with relatively abundant financial resources need to undertake more fiscal responsibilities in providing basic public services.The reform of the financial system involves a wide range and complicated interest relations,and from the point of view of feasibility,it is wis e to take a step-by-step approach so as to avoid the too drastic vibrations caused by the one-stop intense reform.The key idea of the reform is to establish and perfect the vertical and horizontal transfer payment system among governments so that the powe rs or authority of office and financial resources can match each other.Meanwhile,part of tax legislative power shall be delegated to local governments and the local tax system shall be gradually improved so as to make sure that local governments could have more tax resources and steady fiscal revenue to offer proper basic public services to local residents.National and provincial governments should set up and improve the basic public services evaluation and accountability system,promote the transformation of government functions,and encourage local governments to input more revenue into basic public services.