Research On Economic Growth Effect Evaluation And Impact Mechanism Of "Turning County Into District"

Since administrative divisions play an important role in economic development,political power construction,and state governance,the government of People's Republic of China pay attenntion to it.In 1954,the first Constitution of the People's Republic of China was promulgated,and administrative divisions were included as an important part.Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the Party Central Committee has paid more attention to the important role of administrative divisions as an important part of the party's leading people's modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity based on constitutional laws.The report of the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that “deepening the reform of the administrative system” and putting forward clear requirements for the administrative divisions to “optimize the administrative hierarchy and administrative divisions”.In 2014,Chairman Xi Jinping pointed out in his speech of the inspection work in Beijing that “administrative divisions are not necessarily obstacles and barriers to regional cooperation and coordinated development,and administrative divisions themselves are also a resource”.In 2018,the State Council issued the “Regulations on Administrative Divisions”,which made new regulations on administrative division management through the rule of law.At present,with the deeping in progress of urbanization,there is basically no adjustment of provincial administrative divisions across the country,and there are few prefectures and municipalities,showing occasional state of affairs.However,the administrative divisions of county-level administrative districts are gradually increasing,especially in the districts.Most frequently,it has become the main type of administrative division adjustment of prefecture-level cities.The local government hopes to promote urban development from “extensive” to “fine” by withdrawing from the county,and then achieve economic growth through high-quality development.Thus,can the districts that withdraw from the county really promote economic growth? what is the mechanism of it? What is the path to achieve?There are many researches on the adjustment of districts and related administrative divisions.It involves not only economics,management,geography,history,political science and many other disciplines,but also the research field from the administrative division itself to economic and social development,land planning,space governance,institutional reform,and political power construction.The research method also gradually transitions from the initial description of the phenomenon to the qualitative and quantitative research methods.However,from the main line of administrative division adjustment and economic growth,it is still rare to systematically study the impact of turning county into district on economic growth,and to dig deeper into the path of it.This paper is mainly divided into three parts.The first part is theoretical research: based on institutional change theory,industrial structure theory,scale economy theory,administrative region economic theory and economic growth related theory,to explore and analyze the impact mechanism and realization path of the districts of the county.The second part is the empirical test: Firstly,the quantitative model is used to construct the measurement model of the economic growth of the county,and the empirical test is carried out by means of the PSM-DID method.Secondly,from the expansion of land elements,the optimization of industrial structure and the improvement of total factor productivity.Three aspects are examined to determine the path to achieve economic growth in the county.The third part is conclusions and policy recommendations: In order to promote the reform of the administrative division system,give full play to the policy effects of administrative division adjustment,and put forward practical and feasible policy optimization recommendations.The main findings are as follows:Firstly,there are five main ways of adjusting administrative divisions at the county level,namely,dismantling,withdrawing,revoking,disposing,fine-tuning,and further subdivision.Turning county into district is also the main type of adjustment in the demolition.In terms of time,the districts that were removed from the county were gradually developed after the reform and opening up,and they broke out on a large scale in the past two decades.Two peaks were formed in 2000 and 2016 respectively.In terms of space,the districts withdrawn from the county have obvious inter-provincial and inter-regional spatial differentiation,and show different agglomeration characteristics at different stages.In terms of trends,the districts of the county have demonstrated the spatial coupling with the strategic layout of urbanization,the synergy of the development of urban agglomerations,and the pattern of two-way openness along the coast and along the border.Secondly,as an important tool led by the government to promote urbanization,turning county into district has become more and more frequent,and it has become the main type of administrative division adjustment of prefecture-level cities,and its influence on economic growth has become increasingly widespread.Based on the double difference method of propensity score matching,the empirical test examines the effect of districts on economic growth.The results show that turning county into district has a significant role in promoting economic growth.Moreover,this effect presents an “inverted U-shaped” feature that rises and then falls with time.Considering the spatial correlation of economic growth,the spatial double difference method is further used for testing,and the results are still stable.Thirdly,from the three aspects of land factor expansion,industrial structure optimization and upgrading,and total factor productivity improvement,the authors test the possible path of the county's economic growth.In terms of land,turning county into district has brought about the expansion of land elements.Land elements not only participate in economic activities as production materials,but also increase government revenues through the transfer of “investment by land” and “land-to-earth wealth” channels,thereby promoting economic growth.In terms of industrial structure,turning county into district has failed to promote the development of industrial structure in a more advanced and rationalized manner;in terms of total factor productivity,turning county into district will help to expand the market scale and further promote the effects of competition and agglomeration.Promote the improvement of total factor productivity.Turning county into district has significantly promoted urban economic growth,mainly relying on the factor expansion path and the technological progress path,while the structural optimization path has no obvious effect on economic growth.In view of the above research conclusions,in order to promote the full release of the policy dividends of the de-established districts and promote the transformation of economic growth from factor-driven to structural optimization-driven and innovation-driven,the factors expansion and technological progress should be further optimized,and measures should be taken to promote the structural optimization path.Economic growth has a role to play.From the four aspects of optimal allocation of land elements,intensive and efficient use of land resources,two-way improvement of industrial structure and rationalization,and improvement of total factor productivity,practical policy recommendations are proposed.