The Governance Mechanism And Governance Effect Of Tenure-Based Natural Resources Accountability Audit

Based on the strategic needs of the national ecological civilization construction,the Third Plenary Session of the 18 th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed for the first time to explore the implementation of "natural resource asset retirement audit for leading cadres".This innovation in the auditing system with Chinese characteristics was first piloted and then fully promoted,and its institutional effectiveness remains to be tested.Mining its governance mechanism and testing its macroeconomic policy effects are of great significance for promoting the modernization of the national ecological civilization governance system and governance capacity,improving the level of ecological civilization construction,and enhancing China’s cultural and institutional confidence.Based on the public accountability theory,principal-agent theory,national governance theory of auditing,and growth pole theory,this article analyzes that the audit of natural resource assets departure of leading cadres promotes the convergence of their governance concepts and behaviors towards the central goal,alleviates the agency problem of local cadres and the central government in the construction of ecological civilization,and thereby improves the level of regional ecological civilization construction.In addition,the construction of ecological civilization is a systematic project with different construction priorities at different stages of development.At present,the "dual carbon" goal is undoubtedly an urgent and arduous task.The positive effect of natural resource asset departure audit on the overall ecological civilization construction of leading cadres does not mean that it also has a positive governance effect on the phased key "dual carbon" goals.However,the flexibility to play a role with the change of phased construction goals is precisely what it needs as a national governance tool.Therefore,the article further verifies this issue.Finally,the article also focuses on whether there is a spatial spillover effect in the natural resource asset departure audit of leading cadres,that is,in addition to affecting the pilot cities,it will also affect the surrounding cities of the pilot cities.Specifically,it may be accompanied by a "diffusion effect" that may have a positive spillover effect on the surrounding areas or a negative spillover effect based on the "polarization effect".This article manually collected panel data from 285 prefecture level cities in China from2011 to 2020,and used multi time point double difference model and spatial econometric model to test the above policy effects.Research has found that,firstly,the audit of natural resource assets departure of leading cadres has promoted the construction of local ecological civilization,and has a positive effect on the key goal of promoting ecological civilization construction-dual carbon(carbon emission reduction and carbon sink).Secondly,there is still a spatial spillover effect in the audit of natural resource assets after the departure of leading cadres.The distance is limited to 500 km.When the city is not piloted,the pilot projects in surrounding cities have a positive spatial spillover effect on the ecological civilization construction level index,carbon emission reduction,and carbon sink of the city;When this city also conducts pilot projects,the pilot projects in surrounding cities have a negative spatial spillover effect on the ecological civilization construction level index,carbon emission reduction,and carbon sink of this city.This study enriches the theoretical research on the effectiveness of natural resource asset departure audit policies for leading cadres,as well as its cross research with regional economics.In practice,it helps to establish and improve regional linkage mechanisms and form an ecological civilization construction community.