Research On The Influence Of The Reform Of The Fiscal System Of "Direct Provincial Management Of Counties" On The County Basic Public Services In Guangdong Province

With the self positioning of the transformation to a service-oriented government and the completion of the strategic goal of improving the level of basic public services in ecological functional areas,Guangdong has been piloting the reform of the financial system of "directly administered counties by provinces" in 36 counties(cities,districts)in five batches since 2010.In order to understand the impact of the reform on the level of basic public services in pilot counties,this article selects 43 county-level panel data as a sample,establishes a basic public service scoring indicator system with 3 primary indicators and 16 secondary indicators,and obtains the level of basic public services in43 counties using the objective weighting method.Using a multi-period DID regression model,we evaluated the impact of the provincial directly administered county policy on the basic public service level in the pilot counties.The empirical results are as follows:(1)The policy has inhibited the improvement of the basic public service level in the pilot counties in both the short and long term,and the long-term inhibitory effect is greater;(2)The policy has a significant positive effect on the improvement of the basic public service level in the three types of pilot counties,namely,strong cities,strong counties,and weak cities and weak counties,It has a inhibitory effect on the pilot counties with strong cities and weak counties.(3)The policy impact effect is only significant in the short term,and the effect decreases year by year after three years.(4)The economic promotion effect of the policy on weak cities is stronger than that of strong cities,and the financial support effect on strong counties is stronger than that of weak counties.For the regression results,this article believes that the main reasons are the high content of strong cities and weak counties in the control group,insufficient policy formulation and implementation,and the selected pilot counties’ own constraints that are greater than the policy effect,and puts forward the following suggestions:First,the policy formulation process is more tailored to the county,stimulating the vitality of the local economy in strong counties,and strengthening the protection of basic public services in weak counties.Second,steadily promoting the reform of the administrative system in strong counties.Third,unifying the performance standards for basic public services in counties,and establishing an information platform for basic public services in counties throughout the province.