A Study On The Incentive Tools Of Government In Public-Private Cooperative Supply Of Public Services In China

Supply of public services is one of the core functions of the government.The rapid growth of demand for public services in China has promoted the government's supply side reform of public services.With the continuously deepening of this reform,the public-private cooperative supply of public services is becoming a widely used supply model in practice,with the government as an arranger and private for-profit sector as a producer.Public-private cooperative supply of public services is intended to improve public service quality and its supply efficiency,maximize public interest.This requires the private sector involved in the cooperation to pay the highest level of effort in the production of public services.However,the goal of private sector is not to satisfy the public interest,but to pursue the maximization of its own economic returns.Under the principal-agent relationship of information asymmetry between government and private sector,this divergence of objectives leads to the private sector's ability to reduce its quality and falsely report output,to increase its own profits with low-level production,resulting in damage to the public interest.This means that the goal of cooperative supply cannot be achieved automatically in this principal-agent relationship,it is necessary for the government to raise the private for-profit sector's effort level of production by using incentive tools.Therefore,what kind of incentive dimensions are effective,what incentive tools the government has mastered,and how to select and applicate incentive tools better has become important issues that the government must face as the responsible character of public services supply.Based on this,this study on government incentive tools starts from the basic structure of public-private cooperation supply,incentive problems and their solutions,and conducts research according to the main line of incentive tools identification,classification methods,practice inspection and the selection and application of incentive tools.This study analyzes the effective dimensions of the government incentive in the public-private cooperative supply of public services of China,based on principal-agent theory and model analysis method.Combining these dimensions and the incentive tools classification method,this study finds out the effective and available incentive tools our government has mastered in practice by using literature analysis method.Through the case study of different public service areas and different forms of cooperative supply,this study analyzes the main constraints and their formation mechanism of the government's selection and application of incentive tools.It also puts forward specific countermeasures for optimizing these selections and applications,provides theoretical basis and operational guidance for the Chinese government to improve the public services production effort level of the private for-profit sector through incentive tools.Government incentive tools run in the public-private partnership supply structure of public services in China,which refers to government tools that can motivate the private sector to improve its production efforts.Therefore,the research on incentive tools must first correctly understand the operational structure of public-private cooperative supply of public services in China and the incentive issue therein.As the main subjects of cooperative supply,the government and the private for-profit sector choose their own behaviors according to the action logic of "composite subject" and "contingent subject".The invisible social contract relationship between the public and the government,the complex hierarchical relationship in the government and the relationship blended by the political relationship and principal-agent relationship between government and private for-profit sector constitutes the basic operational structure of the public-private cooperative supply of public services in China.Under this structure,there is an inevitable incentive problem between the government and the private forprofit sector due to target difference,information asymmetry and limited rationality.The shortcomings of both the supply and demand sides under the“quasi-market”conditions of public services have aggravated the complexity of this problem,making it difficult to solve simply by contractual terms constrains,rewards,punishments and competition.The idea of incentive compatibility in principal-agent theory provides a solution beyond the contract perspective.In the process of cooperation,it is an inevitable choice for a rational private institution to pay the "optimal production effort level" that can maximize its own income.Therefore,what government incentives need to do is to find the factors that influence this optimal production effort level,and to adjust its value by adjusting these factors.The special status of government as public service arranger and public power owner makes this incentive idea possible.In the complex tool system that the government has mastered,which tools can play effective incentive roles in the public-private cooperative supply of public services is the basic problem that needs to be explored in the study of government incentive tools.Under the guidance of incentive compatibility,this paper studies the profit maximization problem of the private for-profit sector in cooperative supply by means of the parameterization method of distribution function,and using comparative statics to analyze its optimal level of production effort,finding the optimal production effort level of the private for-profit sector.Through the theoretical verification and practical explanation of the factors in the effort level that the government can influence,this study draws the effective dimension of government incentives as the basis for identifying the incentive tools.Combining the results of classical government tool classification theory and the characteristics of government incentive tools,this paper divides government incentive tools into three categories:economic tools,organizational tools and institutional tools.Using effective dimensions and tool classification methods,this paper finds 13 specific incentive tools from 147 policy documents in the six areas of public service,public cultural services,education services,pension services,medical services and employment and entrepreneurship services.The government incentive toolbox in the public-private cooperative supply of public services in China is composed of these tools.According to the general idea of government tool research,the choice and application is the ultimate destination of incentive tools research.Under the "tool-environment" analysis mode,this paper constructs an analytical framework for the selection and application of incentive tools by taking the actors' will,administrative process,public-private relationship and government capacity as the influencing factors,and meticulously observes several cooperative supply practice cases in China.The analysis results show that the selection and application of government incentive tools are constrained by four aspects:insufficient incentive motivation of local government,dysfunctional synergy,unreasonable public-private relationship,and technical defects of tools selection-application.Behind these constraints,each has its own mechanism,the unreasonable institutional orientation of actor behavior,the lack of effective coordination mechanism among government departments,the government's lack of control over public-private relations,and the lack of technical ability to select incentive tools are constraining the selection and application of government incentive tools.These issues need to be addressed by the government through targeted improvements.Therefore,for specific problems and their causes,this study proposes that specific optimization paths and countermeasures should be made from four aspects:change the institutional orientation of actors' behaviors,improvement of departmental coordination mechanisms,rational control of public-private partnerships,and improvement of the technical capabilities about incentive tools.This study has mainly made three innovative explorations.Firstly,it proposes incentive compatibility as the way for government to incentive private for-profit sector's effort level during the production of public services,and uses the model method to derive the identification path of effective incentive tools.Secondly,based on the effective incentive dimension and incentive tool classification method,it proposes a government incentive toolbox containing three types and 13 specific tools through the inspection of the practice field of public service cooperation in public services in China.Thirdly,it constructs an analytical framework for the selection and application of government incentive tools in the public-private partnership supply of public services in China,and analyzes this process with the actor's will,administrative process,public-private relationship and government capacity as the influencing factors.