Research On The Inter-provincial Equalization Of Basic Public Services Provision In China

Basic public services, directly concerning the survival and development of human beings, are the most essential part of public services. Despite of the rapid economy development in China, the basic public service supply at present is still confronted with two prominent issues. The first is the deficiency of basic public services supply, which cannot meet citizens’increasing demands. The second is the serious structural imbalance between urban and rural areas, and among different regions, different groups and individuals. Promoting the equalization of public services is not only the foundation of effective social administration, but also the requirement of improving individuals’ welfare and promoting social justice. Therefore, evaluating the extent of equalization between regions in basic public services and analyzing determinants are of great practical importance.We define basic notions such as basic public service based on literature reviews. We agree that Rawls’ Principles of Justice are internally consistent with equalization in basic public service supply. We build an index system including5service dimensions and19single indices to obtain the Basic Public Service Index (a whole picture of basic public service) for31regions in China from2001to2011using Comprehensive Evaluation Method. We conclude that the basic public service supply is improving with more balanced distribution among regions.We prove that local economic condition, fiscal capacity of local government, and urbanization rate have positive impacts on the performance of the BPSI, while the population density and children dependency ratio have negative correlations with the BPSI. National Development Planning has positive impact on the BPSI with the largest improvement appearing in the second year after promulgation. We explore the composition of regions and classify them into three groups by applying Principal Component Analysis. The first is the highly developed regions with a high BPSI, mainly located in east area, for instance, Beijing and Shanghai. The second is the middle developed regions with a middle BPSI, mainly in the northeast and middle areas of China, for example, Liaoning and Chongqing. The third is the less developed regions with a low BPSI, mainly located in west areas, such as Tibet and Guizhou. We draw the map of BPSI distributions in China, point out limitations of research and the direction of further study at the end of paper.