The Impact Of Fiscal Decentralization On Urban And Rural Education Gap

The report of the 20 th Party Congress proposes to accelerate the construction of a high-quality education system,develop quality education and promote educational equity.The State has repeatedly emphasized that education should be given a strategic position of priority development,tilted education resources to poorer areas to achieve balanced development of urban and rural education,and organized and implemented education upgrading programs in order to improve education standards,education security conditions and education quality.By the end of 2020,96.8% of counties nationwide have achieved the basic balanced development of compulsory education in the county.However,problems such as unbalanced and insufficient education at the high school level and above are still relatively prominent.High-quality talents are urgently needed for high-quality economic development,rural revitalization,and common prosperity,and therefore balanced development of education at all levels is needed.Balanced development of urban and rural education is of great significance to achieve educational equity,build a well-off society and achieve the goal of a strong nation.The gap between urban and rural education is an important indicator to measure the balanced development of education.Beginning with the 1994 tax-sharing reform,China’s fiscal management system has been in constant change.Under the current tax-sharing system,expenditure responsibilities are decentralized and taxation powers are shifted upward.The central government controls nearly 60% of the fiscal revenue,while most of the affairs are allocated to local jurisdictions.On the one hand,more freedom is given to localities to develop the economy,education,culture,etc.within their jurisdictions.On the other hand,local government officials,motivated by goals such as "economic growth,infrastructure construction,attracting foreign investment,and technological innovation" to seek promotions,face challenges such as pressure for political performance and lack of funds in improving education quality and promoting educational equity,further squeezing the investment in public education.Since the implementation of the inclusive finance policy,scholars have confirmed that inclusive finance can alleviate rural education poverty.By improving the quality of rural education,the quality of urban and rural education has also moved toward balance.Through a study of relevant data from 2002-2018 in 30 provinces(excluding Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan),this paper adopts an empirical approach to investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the urban-rural education gap and the mediating or moderating role of government competition and inclusive finance,and finds that fiscal decentralization and the urban-rural education gap have a "U" This relationship is more pronounced in regions with lower levels of digital development and financial inclusion."Local government competition" weakened the effect of fiscal decentralization and urban-rural education gap,which showed a negative mediating effect.The mediating effect of financial inclusion index is not significant,but has a negative moderating effect.Finally,feasible policy recommendations are proposed.