An Empirical Study on the Impact of Individual Local Political Elites and Decision-Making Collective on Educational Fiscal Expenditure in China
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Published
Mar 30, 2021
Abstract
Under the current decentralization system in China, individual characteristics of the local political elites and collective characteristics of the standing committees of the local party have an impact on local education fiscal policy. Yet published research on the similarities and differences between the collective influence of the Standing committee and the individual influence of the political elite are lacking. To address this gap in the literature, our study discussed the impact of local political elites represented by the mayor and the secretary and the collective of standing committees of the local party on education fiscal expenditure. We construct multiple regression models and analyze the R2 Change of variables is based on the cross-sectional data from 2015 of 283 prefecture-level administrative units in China. We find that both political elites and the standing committees have significant impacts on fiscal expenditure in education, and that the influence of the latter is greater than that of the former. The effect of individual characteristics and collective characteristics on education fiscal expenditure is not completely consistent across prefectures. China's prefectural governments implement China's unique principle of democratic centralism when they make decisions on local spending for education and the collective decision-making under the leadership of the committee plays an important role in education fiscal expenditure. Based on this, we put forward policy suggestions to further develop the principle of democratic centralism and to optimize optimizing the local government education supply and evaluation mechanism.
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Keywords
Official Personal Characteristics, Collective Characteristics of Standing Committee of Local Party, Democratic Centralism, Education Fiscal Expenditure
Supporting Agencies
This paper is funded by The Key Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research of Ministry of Educa-tion in 2020 “Research on Evaluation Index System of High Quality Development of Education” (20JZD053). It is also A Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu High-er Education Institutions (PAPD)
References
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Jiang, Y., & Yi, W. (2017). Regional differences, characteristics of local officials and behaviors of educational expenditure. Journal of Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, 32(06):58-66.
Johnson, J. W., & Lebreton, J. M. (2004). History and use of relative importance indices in organizational research. Organizational Re-search Methods, 7(3):238-257. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428104266510
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http://lib.cufe.edu.cn/upload_files/other/4_20140526033222_72_%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%9A%84%E8%B4%A2%E6%94%BF%E5%88%86%E6%9D%83%E4%B8%8E%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%89%E5%8A%A1%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2_%E4%B9%94%E5%AE%9D%E4%BA%91.pdf
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The Ministry of Education’s State Council Office of Poverty Alleviation issued the “Implementation Plan for Poverty Alleviation in Deep Poverty Areas (2018-2020)”. 2018-7-15, http://www.cpad.gov.Cn/art/2018/2/27/art_46_79213.html
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Wang, X., & Xu, X. (2008). Source, destination, tenure and economic growth of local officials: evidence from the provincial party secretary of China. Management World, 2008(3):16-26. [Chinese] https://doi.org/10.19744/j.cnki.11-1235/f.2008.03.003
Wang, X., & Xu, X. (2009). Political incentives, fiscal decentralization and economic behavior of local officials in the transition period. Nankai Economic Studies, 2009(2):58-79. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-NKJJ200902007.htm
Wang, X., & Zhou, J. (2013). Heterogeneity of local officials and performance of public service supply. South China Journal of Economics, 2013(11):47-59. [Chinese] https://doi.org/10.19592/j.cnki.scje.2013.11.005
Wang, Y., Liu, Z., & Yang, Y. (2015). Regional hemiplegia and education supply of local of-ficials. Business Management Journal, 37(8):12-22. [Chinese] https://doi.org/10.19616/j.cnki.bmj.2015.08.004
Xu, C. (2011). The fundamental institutions of China’s reforms and development. Journal of Economic Literature, 49(4):1076-1151. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.49.4.1076
Yang, B., Wang, N., & Zhang, Z. (2014). Analysis of the theoretical basis of collective leadership. Chinese Journal of Management, 11(10):1428-1435. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1672-884x.2014.10.003
Yang, Q., & Zheng, N. (2013). Local leadership promotion competition is a ruler, tournament or qualifying competition. The Journal of World Economy, 36(12): 130-156. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-SJJJ201312008.htm
Yao, J. (2008). Governance of China’s decentralization and balanced development of education. Nanjing Journal of Social Sciences, 2008(8): 119-125. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1001-8263.2008.08.020
Yu, Z. (2017). Local government and public education – From the perspective of fiscal decentralization. GuangZhou: Social Science Literature Publication Press.
Zhang, J. (2008). Decentralization and growth: The story of China. China Economic Quar-terly, 7(1):21-52. [Chinese] https://www.airitilibrary.com/Publication/alDetailedMesh?docid=a0000151-200710-7-1-21-52-a
Zhang, Y. (2014). Leadership team heterogeneity, conflict and management strategy in the background of collective leadership. Leader-ship Science, 2014(8):52-53. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.19572/j.cnki.ldkx.2014.08.016
Zhou, F. (2006). Ten years of tax distribution system: System and its influence. Social Sciences in China, 2006(6):100-115+205. [Chinese] http://www.shehui.pku.edu.cn/upload/editor/file/20171116/20171116092221_5559.pdf
Zhou, L., Li, H., & Wei, C. (2005). Relative performance appraisal: An empirical study on the promotion mechanism of local officials in China. Journal of Economics, 1(1):83-96. [Chinese]
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Li_An_Zhou/publication/281365130_Relative_Performance_Evaluation_An_Empirical_Analysis_of_Turnover_of_Chinese_Local_Officials/links/5743a10b08ae298602f0f21c/Relative-Performance-Evaluation-An-Empirical-Analysis-of-Turnover-of-Chinese-Local-Officials.pdf
Zhu, X., & Hu, X. (2014). Institutionalization of democratic centralism: A comprehensive study of leadership system, institutional sys-tem and working mechanism. Marxism & Reality, 2014(3):13-19. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.15894/j.cnki.cn11-3040/a.2014.03.031
Blanchard, O., & Shleifer, A. (2001). Federalism with and without political centralization: China versus Russia. IMF Staff Papers, 48(1):171-179. https://doi.org/10.3386/w7616
Cai, R. & Yao, J.J. (2018). An empirical study on the influence of the collective characteristics of the standing committee of the party committees at the level on the educational expenditure of education. Research in Educational Development, 38(17):15-20+42. [Chinese] DOI: https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-SHGJ201817007.htm
Cao, C., Ma, L., & Shen, X. (2014). Financial pressure, promotion pressure, official tenure and excessive investment by local state-owned enterprises. China Economic Quarterly, 13(4):1415-1436.
Chen H.R., & Huang H.L. (2010). User acceptance of mobile knowledge management learning system: Design and analysis. Educational Technology & Society, 13(3):70-77.
Chen, S., Zhou, S., & Lu, S. (2017). Official professional collocation and urban economic development: “skill complementarities” or “cognitive conflict”. Economic Perspectives, 2017(11): 88-103. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-JJXD201711008.htm
Fu, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2007). Chinese-style de-centralization and fiscal expenditure structure bias: the cost of competition for growth. Management World, 2007(3):4-12+22. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.19744/j.cnki.11-1235/f.2007.03.002
Government Central Committee. (1993). State education funding system for monitoring the implementation of (Trial).
Hanaysha, J.R.M., Abdullah H.H. & Warokka, A. (2011). Service quality and students’ satisfaction at higher learning institutions: The competing dimensions of Malaysian universities’ competitiveness. The Journal of Southeast Asian Research, 1-10. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5171/2011.855931
Hu, A., & Yang, Z. (2018). Innovative Chinese collective leadership system. Information for Decisions Magazine, 1101(6):16. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-JJDK201709005.htm
Jiang, Y., & Yi, W. (2017). Regional differences, characteristics of local officials and behaviors of educational expenditure. Journal of Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, 32(06):58-66.
Johnson, J. W., & Lebreton, J. M. (2004). History and use of relative importance indices in organizational research. Organizational Re-search Methods, 7(3):238-257. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428104266510
Li, H., & Zhou, L. (2005). Political turnover and economic performance: the incentive role of personnel control in China. Journal of Public Economics, 89(9-10):1743-1762. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2004.06.009
Lin, T. (2009). The influence of mayors of pre-fecture level cities on expenditure of education within the budget. Journal of Public Administration, 1(1):175-190+205-206. [Chinese] https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1674-2486.2009.01.010
Lin, T. J. (2009). The influence of prefecture-level city mayors on budgetary education expenditures. Public Administration Review, 2(1):175-190.
National Education Commission of the National Bureau of Statistics. (1993). National Education Funds Implementation Monitoring Sys-tem (Trial).
Olson, M.L. (2014). Translated by Chen, Y., Guo, Y., & Li, C. The logic of collective action. Shanghai: Gezhi Publishing House: Shanghai People’s Publication.
Persson, P., & Zhuravskaya, E. (2016). The limits of career concerns in federalism: Evidence from China. Journal of the European Economic Association, 14(2):338–374. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.683.9371&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Qian, Y., & Weingast, B.R. (1996). China’s transition to markets: Market-preserving federalism, Chinese style. Journal of Policy Reform, 1(2):149-185. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13841289608523361
Qiao, B., Fan, J., & Feng, X. (2005). China’s fiscal decentralization and compulsory primary education. Social Sciences in China, 2005(6): 37-46+206. [Chinese]
http://lib.cufe.edu.cn/upload_files/other/4_20140526033222_72_%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%9A%84%E8%B4%A2%E6%94%BF%E5%88%86%E6%9D%83%E4%B8%8E%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%89%E5%8A%A1%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2_%E4%B9%94%E5%AE%9D%E4%BA%91.pdf
Song, R., & Chen, G. (2016). Official character-istics, experience and local government education expenditure preference: Evidence from Chinese prefectural cities. Business Management Journal, 38(12):149-169. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-JJGU201612014.htm
The Ministry of Education’s State Council Office of Poverty Alleviation issued the “Implementation Plan for Poverty Alleviation in Deep Poverty Areas (2018-2020)”. 2018-7-15, http://www.cpad.gov.Cn/art/2018/2/27/art_46_79213.html
Tian, D., & Yu, Q. (2017). The influence of background characteristics of top management on corporate green innovation. Research on Financial and Economic Issues, 2017(6):108-113. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-CJWT201706016.htm
Wang, D. (2017). Characteristics of local officials and public expenditure. Journal of Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, 2017(4):36-46. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-NJJJ201704005.htm
Wang, X., & Xu, X. (2008). Source, destination, tenure and economic growth of local officials: evidence from the provincial party secretary of China. Management World, 2008(3):16-26. [Chinese] https://doi.org/10.19744/j.cnki.11-1235/f.2008.03.003
Wang, X., & Xu, X. (2009). Political incentives, fiscal decentralization and economic behavior of local officials in the transition period. Nankai Economic Studies, 2009(2):58-79. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-NKJJ200902007.htm
Wang, X., & Zhou, J. (2013). Heterogeneity of local officials and performance of public service supply. South China Journal of Economics, 2013(11):47-59. [Chinese] https://doi.org/10.19592/j.cnki.scje.2013.11.005
Wang, Y., Liu, Z., & Yang, Y. (2015). Regional hemiplegia and education supply of local of-ficials. Business Management Journal, 37(8):12-22. [Chinese] https://doi.org/10.19616/j.cnki.bmj.2015.08.004
Xu, C. (2011). The fundamental institutions of China’s reforms and development. Journal of Economic Literature, 49(4):1076-1151. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.49.4.1076
Yang, B., Wang, N., & Zhang, Z. (2014). Analysis of the theoretical basis of collective leadership. Chinese Journal of Management, 11(10):1428-1435. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1672-884x.2014.10.003
Yang, Q., & Zheng, N. (2013). Local leadership promotion competition is a ruler, tournament or qualifying competition. The Journal of World Economy, 36(12): 130-156. [Chinese] https://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-SJJJ201312008.htm
Yao, J. (2008). Governance of China’s decentralization and balanced development of education. Nanjing Journal of Social Sciences, 2008(8): 119-125. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1001-8263.2008.08.020
Yu, Z. (2017). Local government and public education – From the perspective of fiscal decentralization. GuangZhou: Social Science Literature Publication Press.
Zhang, J. (2008). Decentralization and growth: The story of China. China Economic Quar-terly, 7(1):21-52. [Chinese] https://www.airitilibrary.com/Publication/alDetailedMesh?docid=a0000151-200710-7-1-21-52-a
Zhang, Y. (2014). Leadership team heterogeneity, conflict and management strategy in the background of collective leadership. Leader-ship Science, 2014(8):52-53. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.19572/j.cnki.ldkx.2014.08.016
Zhou, F. (2006). Ten years of tax distribution system: System and its influence. Social Sciences in China, 2006(6):100-115+205. [Chinese] http://www.shehui.pku.edu.cn/upload/editor/file/20171116/20171116092221_5559.pdf
Zhou, L., Li, H., & Wei, C. (2005). Relative performance appraisal: An empirical study on the promotion mechanism of local officials in China. Journal of Economics, 1(1):83-96. [Chinese]
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Li_An_Zhou/publication/281365130_Relative_Performance_Evaluation_An_Empirical_Analysis_of_Turnover_of_Chinese_Local_Officials/links/5743a10b08ae298602f0f21c/Relative-Performance-Evaluation-An-Empirical-Analysis-of-Turnover-of-Chinese-Local-Officials.pdf
Zhu, X., & Hu, X. (2014). Institutionalization of democratic centralism: A comprehensive study of leadership system, institutional sys-tem and working mechanism. Marxism & Reality, 2014(3):13-19. [Chinese] DOI: https://doi.org/10.15894/j.cnki.cn11-3040/a.2014.03.031
How to Cite
Cai, R., & Zhang, X. (2021). An Empirical Study on the Impact of Individual Local Political Elites and Decision-Making Collective on Educational Fiscal Expenditure in China. Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 7(2), 961–985. https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.21.or023
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