The “double Subjects” Of Regional Economic Growth In Transitional Period: Local Governments And Entrepreneurs

The history of China's reform and opening up is a history of the development of“entrepreneurs” with distinctive characteristics of the transition period.The course of reform and opening up that began with “peasant entrepreneurs” proves that“entrepreneurs” are the “kings” of China's economic growth,and the complexity of their growth and role played also shows China's special characteristics—the role of the government and its officials cannot be ignored while affirming the role of“entrepreneurs”.At least at the regional level,it is simply impossible to explain the extremely unbalanced development among regions in the “Chinese Miracle” simply from the perspective of entrepreneurs.From a realistic rather than theoretical perspective,the cause of the imbalance comes more from the difference of the“coupling” relationship between local governments and entrepreneurs than that of regional entrepreneurs and their endowed spirits.More importantly,with the further deepening of market-oriented reforms and the gradual entry into the later stages of industrialization,the contradictions from the economic,social,and cultural multiple transformations inherent in the transition period have become apparent.How to deal with the relationship between“government and market” from the theoretical level and the relationship between “official entrepreneurs and market entrepreneurs” in practice has become a key issue that China must resolve during the reform of the “deep water zone”.Obsessed with the research paradigm,Western economics,which regards the market economy as an abstract general law,obviously cannot answer these questions.At the same time,the complexity of China's transition period provides a different research material for the relationship between“government and market” in the economic sense.Unlike Western economics,Marx's political economics analyzes market economy by placing it in a specific social history.Based on the governance structure with Chinese characteristics and the primary historical stage of socialism in the transition period,the Party Central Committee proposes that “the market plays the decisive role in resource allocation and the government plays its role better” since the 18 th National Congress of the CPC,which has pointed out the direction for deepening the reform,and achieved a major theoretical breakthrough in handling the relationship between the “thegovernment and the market”.But at the practical level,especially at the regional level,how “the government plays its role better” to make the “market play the decisive role in resource allocation” is not clear in practice.It is related to such major issues as whether the region can develop in a balanced manner or not and whether China's economy can continue to move forward or not.The theory comes from practice and is higher than practice.Based on the consideration of these problems and the observation of regional economic practice,the paper proposes the “double subjects” analysis framework in regional economic growth during the transitional period by the use of deductive induction,historical research,and empirical analysis.It draws on the excellent results of mainstream economics while following the paradigm of Marx's political economy and analyzes entrepreneurs,governments and their officials during the economic growth process in the transitional period.Under the analysis framework,the game relationship between local governments(officials)and markets(entrepreneurs)as well as the relationship between the “double subjects” coupling and the sustainable growth of regional economies are explored and then some policies and suggestions are put forward.The development process of Chinese entrepreneurs is printed with the ubiquitous“brand” of the government.Following the context of China's reform,it is found that the relationship between the government and entrepreneurs in practice is not only caused by economic relations,but also reflects the extension of the intertwined relationship between politics and economy under the background of China's independent governance system and the historical characteristics of the primary stage.Thus the local governments and their officials in China have the status of “quasi-market subjects” in the progressive reform process.In this paper,the local officials under the assumption of“social network people” have the attributes of “entrepreneurs” and play an indispensable “subject” role in order to obtain their political and financial benefits,just as entrepreneurs seek benefits in a market economy.And then the local officials work with market entrepreneurs to promote regional marketization and economic growth.The “double subjects” model is an inevitable choice in the regional economic growth during the transitional period.While affirming that entrepreneurs are the“subject” of China's economic growth at the macro level,the government and its officials play an indispensable “subject” role in regional economic growth.Different from the idea that the local officials “compete for growth” in other related literature,this paper considers that under the constraints of political governance system,regionalendowment structure and “social network people”,the local officials “grow for competition”,which lays a realistic foundation for the “double subjects” existence.The “coupling” between government(officials)and entrepreneurs determines the regional economic growth.The path,speed,performance,and sustainability of regional economic growth depend on the “coupling degree” of the two,and the difference in endowment structure and evolution path between regions results in a large difference in the “double subjects” coupling and its form.The typical samples of Wenzhou and Southern Jiangsu with different local government coupling behaviors,and the dynamic evolution game model of regional scientific and technological innovation systems confirm the effectiveness of the “double subjects” model and the “active” role of local governments in it.Meanwhile,this paper also proposes the incentive and restraint mechanism for the stable operation of “double subjects” based on both the vertical and horizontal mechanisms.The vertical mechanism is how to “establish the right incentives”at the central level to ensure that local officials “do the right things”and the horizontal one is regulating the officials to “do the right things”and “keep away from bad things”through the “social intermediary organizations”.“Double subjects” and “coupling” are a dynamic process.With the deepening of reforms and the further compatibility of cultural endowments with the market economy,the government and the market(officials and entrepreneurs)have formed full consciousness in their respective behaviors,which has spawned market forces that curb the government's arbitrary interference in the market or “cross-border” behavior as well as the regulatory forces that overcome market failures.This model will eventually evolve toward the coupling of “public service guidance by local government+entrepreneur-led economy”.It is worth noting that the difference of evolution model between regions will lead to differences in the evolving speed and path of the above-mentioned mode.But in any case,only the government's function,that is,the dynamic coupling of the government(officials)with the market entrepreneurs” due to the time,situation and place it happens will be transformed while its “subject” status does not disappear.The relationship between “government and market” based on the “double subjects”is restrained by multi-dimensional boundaries.The meaning of “the government plays a better role ” does not lie in the “size” or “strength” of the government.Nor is it a vague judgment on the government is “promising” or not,nor is it a rigid debate on “who is leading” and “who is subordinate”,but the dynamic coupling of the government(officials)with the market entrepreneurs” due to the time,situation and place it happens.Therefore,the “boundaries” between the government and the market are dynamic and multi-dimensional,including the“close and clean” government-commerce relationship from the perspective of culture and the government-enterprise relationship from the perspective of the system which means the enterprises cannot do what the law doesn't authorize but do what the law doesn't forbid.Sustainable growth is the purpose of the “double subjects” framework at the regional level.Starting from the two dimensions of local government and central government,local government and regional entrepreneurs,policies and suggestions for achieving sustainable regional growth through “double subjects” coupling are proposed.First,the government directly involves in the industrial policy of regional economic activities.It is believed that the “multi-level” industrial policy system with “the central government planning,the ministries making policies,local enterprises implementing,and the effect assessed by performance” plays an important role in the initial and developing stage of industrialization.However,its incompatibility is highlighted when it comes to the stage of innovation leadership and it is recommended to move from a“multi-level” to a “two-level” system in the development of major strategic emerging industries.Besides the effectiveness of regional industrial policies are proposed in terms of procedure,organization and legalization boundaries from the view of local officials.Second,the local government intervenes in the economic entrepreneur policy indirectly.On the basis of analyzing the “hard environment” and “soft environment” that entrepreneurs need to play their role,some specific policy suggestions are put forward from three levels: the macro level of property rights protection,marketization process,legal government behavior,finance institutional reform and other systems,the median level of scientific and technological innovation mechanism and the micro-level of support policy for small and medium-sized enterprises,the “close and clean”government-commerce relationship from the cultural perspective,“friendly” social environment and “effective” credit system.Thus the good interactive relationship can be achieved between “double subjects” so as to obtain regional sustainable economic growth.