Government Size Efficiency Evaluation And Enlightenments

Government size has been the focus of academia and social concerns,which itself is an organnic entirety and complex social system,including "government function size","public employment size" and "government expenditure size".Whether the government size is the best,directly affects economic development and social stability.At present,China is in a period of transformation of both economy and society,facing the reality of the "ceiling dilemma","middle income trap crisis" and the global pattern changes.In order to solve the development problems,on November 3,2015,the "CPC Central Committee on the development of national economic and social development thirteenth five-year plan proposal" puts forward five development concepts.Under this strategic goal,can the past government size of China support the realization of the concepts? How to adjust the corresponding size and structure of government expenditure and public employment? The study of these problems has an important theoretical and practical significance for the government to understand the government performance from the perspective of efficiency,and provides theoretical basis for the transformation of government functions.Firstly,this study starts from five dimensions: innovation development,coordinated development,green development,open development and shared development,and establishes five development concepts of government performance evaluation comprehensive index system.Then this paper measures the level of innovation development,coordinated development,green development,open development and shared development of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2009 to 2013.The results show that there was a significant spatial heterogeneity in the level of innovation and open development,while there was no significant change in the level of green,coordinated and shared development,the regional distribution was more balanced as well.Secondly,we set the public employment size and the government expenditure size as input indicators,and five development levels as output indicators.And then under the framework of public finance theory and new public management theory,we use the DEA-Malmquist Model to measure the government size efficiency and total factor productivity change of the five development concepts government performance.On the basis of these,under the target of five development concepts government performance and the economic growth respectively,this paper uses the Tobit regression model to determine the optimal government sizes of 30 provinces and cities in China in 2013.The results show that:(1)The scale efficiency of 30 provincial governments in China was not optimal in 2009-2013,and the inefficiency was mainly depended on the pure technology low efficiency.(2)In 2013,under the goal of government performance,the optimal government expenditure size was 0.9637,the optimal public employment size was 0.0107.While under the economic growth target,the optimal government expenditure size was 0.9937,the optimal public employment size was 0.0118.Thirdly,the paper examines the impact of government expenditure structure on government performance further.According to the government functions,we use national defense expenditure,administrative expenditure,economic construction expenditure,science and education expenditure,social security expenditure and other financial expenditure as input indicators,five development levels as output indicators.Then this paper measures the efficiency of government expenditure and the change of total factor productivity under government performance by using the DEA-Malmquist Model.The results show that:(1)In 2013,the efficiency of the expenditure structure of provincial and municipal governments was generally low and there was spatial heterogeneity.The inefficiency of government expenditure structure was mainly caused by the low scale efficiency.(2)Redundant input and inadequate output were the reason for the inefficiency of the expenditure structure.Among them,there was serious redundancy in administrative expenditure,and there was a serious shortage of innovation and green output.The degree of redundant input and inadequate output in eastern part were the highest,the western region had the least redundant input,and the lack of output in the central region was minimal.(3)During the period of 2009-2013,the total factor productivity of government expenditure was in a negative growth state,mainly affected by the lack of technical level growth.Finally,we get the policy revelations to improve the government performance level:(1)Need to establish a scientific and rational government performance evaluation index system,which in line with the development concepts of different periods.(2)Strengthen the theoretical research of the relationship among public employment size,government expenditure size and structure,government performance,establish a scientific structure of government expenditure,and determine a reasonable government expenditure and public employment size.(3)Need to strengthen the supervision of the preparation and implementation of government budget expenditure structure.