The Characteristics Of Officials And The Strategic Selection Of Decentralization Timing Sequence

In the past 30 years,decentralization reform has swept the world,and almost all countries are carrying out decentralization reform.This reform has changed political and economic practice in recent decades and the way we study politics.As James Manor said,"almost every country in the world is now experimenting with devolution reform." China is no exception.Since 2003,when Hubei and other provinces launched the reform of "strengthening counties and expanding power",more and more provinces have joined the trend of decentralization reform.So far,except Xin Jiang,Tibet two autonomous regions and other four municipalities directly under the central government,most provinces in China have basically realized fiscal decentralization reform and economic decentralization reform with decentralization reform as the core,and the reform intensity has gradually increased as time goes by.It is worth noting that in the face of the same reform,why are different provinces different in reform time,reform progress,reform timing selection and other aspects? In terms of decentralization timing,some provinces first carry out decentralization reform at the economic level,mainly involving decentralization of economic management authority and administrative examination and approval authority,such as Shandong province.Some provinces first carried out decentralization of fiscal fiscal power and power,such as Jiangxi province.This makes us think,why within the same institutional framework the same reform can occur in different time series?Existing literature on decentralization theory mostly discusses whether decentralization,decentralization type,decentralization effect and other aspects.However,in the practice of decentralization reform in countries all over the world,we find that almost all countries have their own reform paths.Even in the same country,the decentralization path also presents different timing characteristics,which is just rarely involved in the existing research.This paper aims to explore the relationship between the individual characteristics of officials and the diversification of decentralization timing sequence selection in China's decentralization reform practice.Why do the characteristics of officials influence the difference in the timing selection of decentralization?In view of the existence of the responsibility system of local leaders and the principal-agent relationship between the central and local governments,the author thinks that the difference in the timing of decentralization may be related to the characteristics of local officials.Therefore,this paper USES the provincial sectional data from 2002 to 2013 to explore the relationship between the timing selection strategy of provincial management and county decentralization and official characteristics.It is found that the selection of provincial decentralization timing strategy is closely related to the individual characteristics of provincial officials such as age,tenure,education level and destination,and the difference in decentralization timing is also influenced by the policies of the central government,market size,local government competition effect and economic development level.The correlation between the characteristics of officials and the time-series difference of decentralization is most obvious in the individual secretary of provincial party committee.Specifically,the time sequence of economic decentralization before decentralization is influenced by the educational background and destination of provincial party secretary,and has no significant correlation with the individual characteristics of provincial governor.For the timing sequence of fiscal decentralization before fiscal decentralization,the timing sequence of decentralization is related to the learning experience acquired by the remote communication of party secretaries,as well as the age and tenure of provincial party secretaries.As for provincial governors,their tenure and destination will affect their choice of fiscal decentralization timing.In addition,since the no.1 document of the CPC Central Committee in 2009 clearly stipulated that fiscal decentralization reform should be implemented in all provinces and regions by 2012,it was found after introducing policy variables that the central government policy would significantly promote fiscal decentralization timing reform before fiscal decentralization after 2009.However,in the timing sequence of decentralization reform carried out simultaneously by the two reforms,there is no significant correlation between the individual characteristics of the secretary of provincial party committee and the selection difference of decentralization timing sequence.This paper believes that this may be due to the contingency of the reform of decentralization timing sequence.After considering the individual characteristics and policy variables of the provincial party secretary,the marketization degree at the provincial level will significantly promote the selection of these three decentralization time series.According to relevant studies,the author believes that because all three kinds of decentralization timing sequence can promote economic growth to different degrees,the higher the degree of marketization,the more incentives for promotion of local development economy will be,so the degree of marketization will significantly promote the choice of three kinds of decentralization timing sequence.Underlie the author thinks that the governor of provincial party committee secretary of the personal characteristics and the separation of temporal variety of relations,and promotion tournament and local leadership responsibility system,the system of incentive and constraint is what makes the local government's public policy choice in the preferences have leaders personal characteristics of diversified phenomenon,but not completely head "them".Combined with the regression results of this paper,it can be found that local leaders still consider factors such as local economic development level when making public policy choices.Finally,the explained variable based on this paper is a dummy variable,so logit binary model is selected for the empirical method.Compared with the differences in decentralization effects and types generally studied in the current academic circle,this study greatly enriches the research on the existing decentralization theory,and also provides reference significance for the central government's decision of appointing and removing officials.