The Influence Of Local Government Competition On The Expansion Of Urban Construction Land

With the rapid urbanization in China,a series of problems such as the expansion of urban construction land,serious loss of cultivated land and environmental pollution have attracted extensive attention from academia and practice management departments.The irrational expansion of urban size may bring challenges to the promotion of regional coordinated development,and the local government,as the main actor of urban construction land space,plays an increasingly critical role in the process of urban construction land expansion.Based on this,it is of great significance to understand the internal mechanism of the influence of local government competition on the expansion of urban construction land to promote the rational development of cities.Therefore,this paper tries to make a concrete analysis of the changes of urban construction land caused by the competition behavior of local governments from the theoretical and empirical aspects,in order to provide practical suggestions for the rational expansion of cities.This paper firstly analyzes the effect mechanism of local government competition on the expansion of urban construction land theoretically,especially discussing the influence of local government competition(financial competition and investment attraction competition)on the expansion of urban construction land under various spatial relations such as "administrative affiliation","economic integration" and "geographical proximity" and proposes the corresponding research hypothesis.Then,the paper makes an in-depth analysis of the spatial and temporal characteristics and changing trends of the expansion of urban construction land and the competition between local governments by using the relevant statistical data of China Mainland.On this basis,through the construction of econometric model and the use of ordinary panel model and spatial panel model,the paper tests the different administrative levels of local government competition on the expansion of urban construction land empirically.The results show that:(1)On the whole,competition between municipal and county-level local governments will lead to the significant expansion of urban construction land.On the one hand,local governments increase local revenue by selling commercial and service land at a high price in order to increase the construction of infrastructure public goods and promote economic growth.On the other hand,by selling a large amount of industrial land at a low price,the governments try to promote the development of local related industries in order to obtain the increase of district GDP.Under the developing path of "land to generate wealth" and "land to attract investment",urban construction land expands significantly.(2)From the perspective of government behavior interaction,firstly,financial competition and investment attraction competition,as specific means for local governments to carry out political competition,will lead to significant expansion of local urban construction land.Secondly,the effect of local government competition on the expansion of urban construction land has interactive competition effect and spillover effect.Specifically,the behaviors of fiscal competition and investment attraction competition among the local governments of both "administrative affiliation" and "economic affiliation"(including the "economic affiliation" within the province)all show the strategic interaction of imitation,comparison and learning under the effect of Chinese-style yardstick competition,thus bringing the spatial effect of urban expansion.For the "geographically adjacent" local governments,there is a positive spatial overflow phenomenon in their fiscal competition behavior,which will also lead to the significant expansion of urban construction land.(3)Comparative analyzing of local government competition behavior under different spatial relations,local government fiscal competition behavior for the influence degree of the urban construction land expansion to present the phenomenon of "administrative affiliation" > "economic affiliation" within the province > "geographical proximity" > "economic affiliation",and the investment attraction competition is showing "administrative affiliation" > "economic affiliation" within the province > "economic affiliation",this shows that for the competition between local governments,in other cities within the same provincial land use decisions,it is easier to stimulate the land transfer into competition.Finally,the paper puts forward some policy suggestions,such as optimizing the performance evaluation index and the local financial system,improving the land use system,and guiding the local government to compete in a rational and orderly manner,from the two aspects of improving the relevant institutional policies and guiding the local rational decision-making.