Research On Spatial Pattern And Influencing Mechanism Of Administrative Level Allocation Of Public Service Resources In China

At present,socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era.The main social contradictions have been transformed into the contradiction between the people's growing need for a better life and the unbalanced and inadequate development.Taking the people as the center,providing convenient,high-quality and efficient public services has become an important part of the national governance system and an important standard to measure the government's governance ability.The equalization of basic public services between cities and between urban and rural areas has become an important theme of public service research.Domestic and international research on this issue mainly focuses on equalization between horizontal regions and urban-rural equalization.The main focus in vertical equalization is the rational division of financial rights and powers between governments at various levels.The existing achievements are relatively insufficient for the study of the vertical allocation gap of public service resources in each administrative region.In fact,the administrative district level is a direct reflection of the spatial allocation structure of state power.Behind many seemingly non-equalization problems between horizontal regions,the imbalance of resource allocation in vertical hierarchical relationship plays a role.such as,public service gap between ordinary prefecture-level cities and municipalities,and vice-provincial cities,the hidden logic behind this is deeply related to the resource allocation capabilities of cities,and resource allocation capabilities are closely related to the location of the cities in the state power system.Moreover,the non-equalization of vertical public service resource allocation between different administrative levels has intensified the non-equalization of public services between horizontal regions.For example,in many provinces,gradually expanding the strategy of enlarging and strengthening the central city,prioritizing and agglomerating provincial public service resources in provincial capitals will have a strong squeeze effect and siphon effect on other cities in the province.This has seriously interfered with the implementation of the national strategy of equalization of basic public services.In this way,the systematic research on the Impact of administrative hierarchy on the allocation of public service resources and its mechanism of action are urgently needed in order to provide reference for the next step of administrative division adjustment and basic public service equalization.Based on the above understanding and drawing on the central geography theory,the new regionalism,the public choice theory and the team's previous research results,this paper proposes three research hypotheses,and then mainly uses literature review and empirical research.comprehensively using literature analysis,statistical analysis of statistics,quantitative analysis(including factor analysis,correlation analysis,comprehensive index analysis,multiple regression analysis and spatial measurement analysis,etc.),POI hot spot analysis and spatial visualization methods,from the perspective of the vertical level Spatial configuration difference of public service resources cut Into the theme of equalization of basic public services conducting empirical research closely around on spatial pattern of administrative hierarchy allocation and the Influencing mechanism of administrative hierarchy on the spatial pattern of public service resource allocation.Specifically,the paper is divided into eight chapters.Among them,Chapter 1-2is the basic part,which mainly including research background,research questions and research hypothesis,research ideas and overall framework,research methods and possible innovations,definition of core concepts,relevant theories and literature review.Chapters 3-7 are the main parts,which are roughly developed from three aspects:Firstly,sorts out institutional changes of the hierarchical allocation system of public service resources in China from historical evolution indifferent periods(Chapter 3);Secondly,analysis of the spatial pattern of administrative level allocation of public service resources in China from different scales.The research scales are provincial scale(Chapter 4),prefecture scale(Chapter 5)and county scale(Chapter 6);Thirdly,examines the Influence effect and mechanism of administrative hierarchy on the spatial allocation of public service resources in China from different scale models in two dimensions(Chapter 7);Chapter 8 is a summary of research,including research conclusions,research deficiencies,and directions for further research.Through the research,this paper draws the following main conclusions:1.It is assumed that the spatial pattern of administrative level allocation of public service resources in China presents the dual logic of "the higher administrative level,the better the allocation of public service resources in cities" and "as the center of regional public service,the better the allocation of public service resources in administrative centers",the administrative district level and whether the administrative center has a significant impact on the spatial allocation of urban public service resources.Empirical research finds that this hypothesis holds on the whole,but in different scales and different fields,the effect is different.First of all,the characteristics of the hierarchical allocation of public service resources in China are indeed obvious.There are at least four aspects: firstly,administrative hierarchy has causal effect on most indicators of public service resource allocation in China.In terms of the impact mechanism,it is mainly the direct causal effect superimposed Intermediary influence effect.Secondly,administrative hierarchy is an important factor in the spatial allocation of public service facilities.At present,public libraries,cultural libraries and cultural relics institutions all present the typical characteristics of“the higher the administrative level,the higher the spatial coverage rate”.Thirdly,the administrative center is indeed in an obvious superior position in obtaining the allocation of public service resources at the higher level.Fourthly,the allocation of public service resources among cities with different organizational levels presents a very obvious characteristic of "the higher the administrative level of a city,the better the allocation of resources".In the next place,from the perspective of the influence of administrative district level on the allocation of public service resources in China,it is very obvious that“the larger the scale of observation space,the greater the influence of administrative level on the allocation of public service resources”:on the city scales of urban and above,the impact of urban administrative level on the allocation of most public service resources has a significant causal effect,but on the prefecture level(with districts)and county level,the administrative level only has a significant causal effect on the allocation of primary school resources and public health resources.However,regardless of the size of the scale,the law of “the impact of administrative level on the quality of public service resource allocation is significantly higher than the number of resource allocation” is presented.Thirdly,from the perspective of whether the administrative center has an impact on the spatial allocation of urban public service resources,on the scale of prefecture-level cities,whether the provincial capital city has a significant positive causal effect on the public education(except for the ratio of middle school students to teachers)and the quantity allocation of public medical resources.And It has significant positive causal effects on the hierarchical public culture,public education,and public medical resource allocation in prefecture-level cities;On the county-level city scale,"whether the prefectural administrative center" has a significant impact on the allocation of most public service resources,but has no causal effect,and only has a significantpositive causal effect on the allocation of upper-level public education resources.At the township-level scale,"whether the county administrative center" has a causal effect only on "the number of beds per capita","the number of doctors per capita" and "the score of public cultural resources at the upper level",the goodness of fit is very low.However,it is worth noting that,relative to the explicit administrative district level,the implicit administrative level has little or no impact on the allocation of public service resources in China.Simple upgrading of administrative hierarchy does not necessarily improve the level of public service supply in county-level and below-level divisions.Compared with other types of county-level cities,such as prefecture-level cities acting as county-level cities,the allocation of public service resources in provincial-level cities,provincial-level cities and provincial-level cities may not have obvious advantages in terms of quantity or quality.2.It is assumed that with the gradual sinking of the focus of public service and the gradual upward shift of financial expenditure responsibility since 2003 and the gradual improvement of the new mechanism of Co-construction and sharing of public service resources in cities at all administrative levels,the impact of administrative levels on the allocation of public service resources is weakening.However,empirical research finds that the causal effects of administrative levels on the allocation of urban public service resources are increasing year by year,whether at the city level or above,or at the comparative scale of prefecture-level cities(cities with districts)and county-level cities.3.It is assumed that in the eastern region with more developed county economy,especially in the Yangtze River Delta region,the administrative level allocation gap of public service resources is smaller.The empirical results show that this hypothesis is basically valid.Because,from the perspective of regional differentiation of the level allocation of public service resources,overall,the gap of the level allocation of public service resources between prefecture-level cities in the eastern region,especially in the Yangtze River Delta region,is relatively smaller,and the level allocation of the number of public service resources between prefecture-level cities and county-level cities is more balanced.In addition,this paper also finds three rules of the hierarchical allocation of public service resources in China:Firstly,from the perspective of the institutional changes of the hierarchical allocation system of public service resources in China,the administrative level allocation system of public education resources was earlier and clearer,followed by public health care,and finally formed the administrative level allocation system of public cultural resources.Accordingly,the empirical study finds that the administrative hierarchy has a more significant impact on public education and public health resources allocation,while the impact on public cultural resources allocation is relatively weak.Moreover,from the perspective of the impact of administrative levels on the allocation of public service resources in China,the impact of administrative levels on the allocation of school resources and the allocation of medical resources is more significant.Further observation shows that in the field of school resource allocation,the impact of administrative levels on primary school resource allocation is greater than that on secondary and higher school resource allocation,and the impact on school geographic density is greater than that on student-teacher ratio.Secondly,compared with ordinary provincial capital cities and sub-provincial cities,the gap of public service resources allocation within ordinary prefecture-level cities is the smallest.On theone hand,at prefecture-level cities scale,there is a pattern of "the higher the administrative level is,the greater gap of internal resource allocation" among prefecture-level cities;on the other hand,at the county level,the hierarchical gap in the ownership of public service resources at different levels of prefecture-level cities also shows the law of "the smallest hierarchical gap within ordinary prefecture-level cities".Thirdly,administrative hierarchy has a spatial impact on most indicators of public service resource allocation in China.The main manifestation is that most indicators of public service resource allocation have obvious spatial effects of high-high and low-low agglomeration,and the higher the urban administrative level,the more significant the impact of administrative level on the allocation of public service resources.