The Impact Of Removing GDP Indicator In Appraisal System On The Economic Performance Of Unreformed Regions Within Cities

As the core system for political promotion,government performance appraisal is a key constraint for local officials to coordinate regional resources,which profoundly affects their economic performance and policy preferences.In order to overcome the drawbacks of the GDP-based appraisal system,in December 2013,the "Notice on Improving the Performance Appraisal of Local Party and Government Leaders " proposed to strengthen the binding assessment of environmental performance,and no longer assess indicators such as GDP and industry in restricted development zone(such as major agricultural product producing areas,key ecological function zone,and ecologically fragile counties in key counties included in the national plan for poverty alleviation through development).In this context,a large number of studies have focused on environmental assessment,but few studies have focused on the policy effect of eliminating GDP indicator.This paper takes the urban panel data from 2009 to 2019 excluding counties without GDP assessment as a sample,constructs a multi-period difference-in-difference model,studies the impact of this policy on the economic development of unreformed regions in the city and its mechanism,and tests the robustness of the conclusions by substituting the explanatory variables,using PSM-DID,and excluding potential outliers.Differences in policy effects were discussed from the perspective of regional heterogeneity.The conclusions are:(1)The abolition of GDP indicator in appraisal system has a significant positive impact on the economic growth of unreformed regions in the city,so that the regional GDP growth rate has increased by 1.218%.(2)Compared with other cities that have not abolished the GDP assessment,the fiscal pressure of unreformed areas in cities with reform counties is relatively increased,which verifies the mechanism of using fiscal means to stimulate growth after the economic growth pressure in these regions increases.(3)The policy effect is regional heterogeneous,and the policy effect in the eastern region and regions with higher marketization levels is significant.The reason is that these regions have a relatively high level of economic development,and the government has more ability and motivation to develop the economy when facing increased pressure on economic growth.Based on the above research conclusions and the background of high-quality development,this paper puts forward corresponding policy suggestions for improving performance appraisal and coordinated regional development.The main innovation point of this paper is to focus on the impact of the abolition of GDP assessment on the economic performance of unreformed urban areas,and analyze its mechanism from the perspective of economic growth pressure,which has certain innovation in research perspectives and methods.Besides,the conclusion of this paper enriches and expands the relevant research.