County-level Government Research Articles

Government digitalization and its influence on government functions transformation adopting a Structural Functionalism perspective: Evidence from county-level governments in China

A proactive and innovative approach to government digital reform is necessary to ad-dress potential explanations for the sustained influence of government digitalization, thereby optimizing the behavior and performance of government functions transformation. This study constructs a theoretical framework for understanding the driving mechanisms of government digitalization on government functions transformation from a Structural Functionalism perspective. Based on subdividing government digitalization into four dimensions and government functions transformation into two dimensions, a survey questionnaire with high validity and reliability was compiled and distributed. Utilizing Structural Equation Model, the study investigated the driving mechanisms of government digitalization on government functions transformation and their spatial variations as follows: (1) Digitalization Planning underscores its decisive role in local government functions transformation. (2) Digitalization Technology has a substantial direct impact on Digitalization Platform. (3) Digitalization Policy directly affects Digitalization Platform, behavior, and performance of government functions transformation. (4) Digitalization Platform exerts the most direct impact on government functions transformation. Additionally, the driving mechanisms of government digitalization on government functions transformation exhibit both commonalities and differences across the East, Center, and West of China.

Fiscal decentralization, leader localization, and reduction of pollution and carbon emissions —empirical evidence from China's fiscal “province-managing-county” reform

The fiscal system plays an important role in the government's environmental governance efforts. There is currently no consensus on how fiscal structure adjustments impact pollution and carbon reduction. This paper uses China's fiscal “province-managing-county” reform (FPMCR) implemented in 2004 as a quasi-natural experiment, utilizing panel data from 1670 counties in China from 2000 to 2020 to investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on reduction pollution and carbon emissions (RPCE), as well as its underlying mechanisms. The results show that (1) from 2000 to 2020, China's RPCE shows an overall trend of fluctuating increase, with its value turning positive after 2013. China's RPCE exhibits a spatial pattern characterized by “lower in the north, higher in the south; higher in the east, lower in the west”. (2) After implementing FPMCR, the RPCE levels in reformed counties decreased by −1.44%, showing that reformed county-level governments prioritize economic development over environmental protection. (3) The mechanism analysis found that after implementing FPMCR, reformed counties experienced a 9.16% increase in nighttime light intensity (NLI), and a 3.99% and 4.34% increase in the number of large-scale industrial enterprises (NLIE) and industrial agglomeration (IA), respectively. This suggests that FPMCR leads to radical urbanization and rapid industrialization in counties, which is detrimental to the improvement of RPCE levels. (4) The spatial heterogeneity analysis found that FPMCR's impact coefficient on RPCE levels in the eastern regions is −1.96%, while in the western regions it is −1.16%. This indicates that reformed counties in the eastern regions are more likely to invest expanded fiscal resources in economic development projects, leading to a decrease in RPCE levels. (5) The temporal heterogeneity analysis found that after the promulgation of the “Three-Year Action Plan to Win the Blue Sky Defense Battle” in 2018, the adverse impact of FPMCR on RPCE is completely reversed, leading to a 1.76% increase in RPCE levels. (6) Further analysis reveals that localizing leaders can slow down the promotion of county-level urbanization and industrialization by the FPMCR, benefiting the improvement of RPCE levels. In other words, “the outsider monk will not recite scriptures as well as a local one”. This study has clarified the causal relationship and underlying mechanisms between fiscal decentralization and environmental governance, providing reliable theoretical support for optimizing grassroots fiscal systems and reducing environmental pollution in other transitional economies. It enriches the field of environmental economics related to fiscal decentralization.

Exploring the Theory of Employee Planned Behavior: Job Satisfaction as a Key to Organizational Performance.

This article introduces a significant advancement with the "Theory of Employee Planned Behavior" (TEPB), a novel extension of the well-established Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The TEPB uniquely positions job satisfaction as a central determinant in driving organizational performance. Using data from county-level government institutions in the United States, this research offers a nuanced exploration into how employee satisfaction influences organizational commitment and citizenship behaviors, which, in turn, substantially impact organizational performance. Our approach utilizes a significant dataset involving 372dyads across hierarchical levels in government institutions. Through the application of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), we rigorously validate the TEPB model. The results highlight a significant relationship where enhanced job satisfaction leads to stronger organizational commitment. This heightened commitment further fosters organizational citizenship behaviors, crucial in achieving superior organizational performance. This work notably extends the TPB model by integrating organizational performance as a consequential outcome. It also provides empirical evidence of the direct relationship between job satisfaction and organizational performance, specifically in the context of government institutions. Such findings are invaluable for organizational executives and policymakers in recognizing the paramount importance of employee satisfaction for organizational success. Overall, the TEPB model presented in this study offers a holistic and practical framework for organizations seeking to understand and effectively manage employee behavior. By focusing on job satisfaction, organizations can foster a more committed and proactive workforce, significantly improving performance and efficiency.

Regulating local government debt in China: Intended and unintended consequences

This study integrates institutional and empirical analyses to investigate the intricate policies that regulate local government debt in China. It finds that, within a remarkably short period, China has skilfully incorporated local government debt into the local budget management system, thereby transforming it from a mere transaction between local governments and credit agencies to an intergovernmental fiscal relations framework. The study also establishes that the pivotal debt-regulating policies are more geared towards prioritizing the cost of debt over its scale. Official documents, statistical data, and in-depth interviews provide evidence to support these findings. Drawing on an analysis of county-level panel data in Sichuan Province, this study identifies two main effects of these policies. Primarily, the cost of local general debt may trigger the notorious soft budget constraint, thereby incentivizing county-level governments to depend more heavily on superior transfer payments. Additionally, the fiscal consolidation policy, which focuses on the cost of local special debt, may lower the debt ratio. However, it also has the unintended consequence of bolstering the local government’s reliance on land finance.

The geography of arthritis-attributable pain outcomes: a county-level spatial analysis.

Research on the geographic distribution of pain and arthritis outcomes, especially at the county level, is limited. This is a high-priority topic, however, given the heterogeneity of subnational and substate regions and the importance of county-level governments in shaping population health. Our study provides the most fine-grained picture to date of the geography of pain in the United States. Combining 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data with county-level data from the Census and other sources, we examined arthritis and arthritis-attributable joint pain, severe joint pain, and activity limitations in US counties. We used small area estimation to estimate county-level prevalences and spatial analyses to visualize and model these outcomes. Models considering spatial structures show superiority over nonspatial models. Counties with higher prevalences of arthritis and arthritis-related outcomes are mostly clustered in the Deep South and Appalachia, while severe consequences of arthritis are particularly common in counties in the Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Georgia, Florida, and Maine. Net of arthritis, county-level percentages of racial/ethnic minority groups are negatively associated with joint pain prevalence, but positively associated with severe joint pain prevalence. Severe joint pain is also more common in counties with more female individuals, separated or divorced residents, more high school noncompleters, fewer chiropractors, and higher opioid prescribing rates. Activity limitations are more common in counties with higher percentages of uninsured people. Our findings show that different spatial processes shape the distribution of different arthritis-related pain outcomes, which may inform local policies and programs to reduce the risk of arthritis and its consequences.

The importance, orientation and key content of township-level comprehensive spatial planning in China

On the basis of fully understanding the key characteristics and problems of China’s township master plans, this article clarifies the requirements of the territorial spatial planning system reform for the governance system of townships and towns, urban–rural integration and high-quality development, and points out the necessity of overall planning for township-level territorial spaces in China. Then, based on the study of international experience and the division of administrative powers between county-level government and township-level government, it proposes the positioning features of overall planning for township-level territorial spaces, including the communication and implementation of municipal and county planning, innovating the control methods concerning the use of town seat space, and coordinating and guiding the formulation of detailed plans. It also indicates that the key content of overall planning for township-level territorial spaces must include natural resource management, development and utilization of territorial spaces, spatial pattern of town areas, spatial layout of town seats, management and control of village construction, etc.

Quality management of the newborn screening network: the Chinese experience.

Quality management of the newborn screening network: the Chinese experience.

(Re)Centralisation of education governance in Hungary: its causes, declared goals, motives and some potential hidden goals

After municipalities (local governments) and county level governments were established in Hungary in 1990, public education was operated, governed and financed by these elected bodies with the financial support of the central government until the end of 2012. In this decentralised system differences in local wealth and income of municipalities led to significant inequalities in the funding and performance of their schools, and the learning outcomes of the children studying in these. The FIDESZ-KDNP coalition government that took office in 2010 radically centralised the system of governance and funding of schools, claiming that this will be a remedy to the problems of the system. Based on a large set of research interviews and previous research results our paper investigates the declared goals of this reform, and tries to explore its motives as well. According to our research interviews granting equal opportunity in education to every child seems to be the overarching goal of centralisation, and there are three more other goals as well, including the creation of a more efficient and cost-effective system of institutional management. However, some characteristics of the selection of these goals and the seemingly complete lack of the monitoring of their fulfilment, together with the fact that independent research already proved that the centralisation was definitely unable to achieve its main declared goal, may substantiate the claim that this just served as a cover or pretext, and there probably exists a hidden agenda that is more important for the government than the publicly declared goals. Based on interviews with former politicians, education researchers, advisors and school headmasters we tried to find some of the possible real motives and hidden goals. Although the existence of such goals is impossible to prove exactly, we found several circumstances that may substantiate their existence.

To join the top and the bottom: the role of provincial governments in China's top-down policy diffusion

The provincial governments in China and their impact on the policy adoption of county-level administrations remain understudied. This article contributes to the study of policy adoption by dividing the roles enacted by provincial governments into the four following types: subcontractor, pressure-giver, designer, and co-provider. It utilizes the event history analysis method to examine the effects of the four aforementioned roles on policy adoption by county-level governments on the Old Age Allowance Policy (OAAP). The results suggest that provinces playing the roles of designer, co-provider, and pressure-giver exert a significantly more positive impact on the acceptance of the OAAP by their county-level administrations than provinces performing as subcontractors. Meanwhile, the subcontractor-then-designer role exerts a negative influence on the espousal of the OAAP by county-level governments. These findings deliver a new theoretical account of the vertical approach to policy diffusion and offer substantive practical implications for social policy applications in hierarchical societies.

The Fiscal Impact of County-to-Urban District Conversion in China

Municipal annexation has been one of the most widely adopted instruments for urban growth in the United States. Scholars of public choice and regional studies have long debated the fiscal effect of local government annexation. Few studies, however, examine the fiscal effect of municipal administrative annexations in China, where prefectural cities have extensively annexed county-level governments through forcefully converting rural counties into urban districts in a top-down manner. Employing a difference-in-differences (DID) method coupled with an event study approach, we analyzed a panel data set of 282 prefectural cities from 2007 to 2015 to examine the fiscal impact of annexation in China. The findings show that prefectural cities have significantly increased their land conveyance fees through administrative annexation. Given that land conveyance fees serve as one of the most important own-source revenues at the local level, our findings shed light on the crucial link among the urbanization process, government reorganization, and local land finance in China and, potentially, in other transition countries.

Anatomy of intergovernmental finance for essential public health services in China

BackgroundThe Chinese government launched health care reforms in 2009 and introduced a national list of essential public health services (EPHS) as an integral part of the plan to deliver health care for all. EPHS was also built into the national plan to promote the equalisation of public services across the country. A national standard was set for financial input to EPHS. As the services are co-funded by the central and local governments, a robust intergovernmental fiscal system is essential to guarantee that the hundreds of thousands of service providers have adequate financing to meet the service commitment.MethodsWe examined the flow of funds through China’s complex intergovernmental fiscal system to see whether the promise of equal funding for EPHS was implemented, and how the costs were distributed across levels of government. Information was collated from funding documents issued by all levels of governments involved, for a sample that includes the central government, 12 provincial governments, eight prefectural governments and 11 county-level governments. For each level of government, we examined: (i) when and how much funding they disbursed or received from higher levels; (ii) when and how much matching funds were made; and (iii) the allocation rules adopted.ResultsOverall, we found the central government met its commitments for the program on time and in full, and good compliance from local governments in passing through funding from higher levels and as well as meeting their own financial responsibilities. However, we also found the following problems: (i) the involvement of so many levels of government resulted in delays in the disbursement of funds; (ii) the use of outdated population data in calculating required funding resulted in some under-allocation; and (iii) localities that needed funding the most were not well targeted by the distribution of funds.ConclusionThis study traces how the 2018 subsidy for EPHS was disbursed from the central government to service providers, focusing on the roles played by intermediate levels of subnational governments—provinces, prefectures and counties. In this way, it identifies gaps in the current intergovernmental financing of EPHS and points to areas for further improvement.

An analysis of the behavioral decisions of governments, village collectives, and farmers under rural waste sorting

In the process of rural revitalization in China, it is an urgent problem to realize rural waste sorting. This study analyzes the behavioral decision-making of village collectives in rural waste classification for the first time, constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model of governments, village collectives and farmers, and discusses the game relationship among the three stakeholders through dynamic decision replication analysis and evolutionary stability analysis. Zhejiang is one of the earliest provinces to implement rural waste classification with mature experience in China. Taking Zhejiang Province as an example, this paper evaluates the decision-making characteristics of the tripartite behaviors under the current situation and the evolution trends of the behaviors of various stakeholders by real numerical simulation, innovatively introduces the rural waste charging into the model, and discusses the feasibility of its implementation. The simulation shows that the following policies can improve the overall operational effect and promote stakeholders to implement waste classification earlier: the incentive supervision investment of county-level governments should be appropriately reduced to within 40 million yuan; the governments implement a policy of high reward and high punishment for the village collectives; the village collectives should reduce material rewards and maintain its management cost within 14 million yuan. The simulation also shows that the garbage charging is suitable to be popularized in rural areas with the ideal range of fees is 30–80 yuan. The purpose of this study is to seek effective policies and management schemes to improve the overall operational effect of rural waste classification in China.

Based on the Perspective of Urban Social Governance—Research on the Function Transformation of County-Level Government in Underdeveloped Areas of Market Economy

Based on the Perspective of Urban Social Governance—Research on the Function Transformation of County-Level Government in Underdeveloped Areas of Market Economy

Construction of Urban Flood Disaster Emergency Management System Using Scenario Construction Technology.

Due to the global climate anomaly, ecological environment damage, human activities, and other reasons, flood disaster has become a major threat to mankind. The emergency rescue resources under different subject management and different emergencies have different characteristics, attributes, and management modes, which restrict the unified dispatching, overall management, and efficient utilization of the comprehensive rescue command platform. The frequent occurrence of natural disasters can not only easily affect the public security of society but also pose a great threat to the safety of Chinese people's lives and property. As the first-line person in charge of China's response to natural disasters, local governments cannot deal with natural disasters well. More than thousands of people die from natural disasters in China every year. The economic losses caused amounted to hundreds of billions. The occurrence of various floods and natural disasters not only affects the local economic and social development but also relates to the production and life of the local people, and the stability of the local society and national unity. How to effectively deal with flood disaster is also an important index system to test the execution and management ability of the Party and the government. Therefore, it is necessary to deeply study flood disaster from the theoretical height, hoping to provide reference theoretical support and practical guidance for local county-level government flood disaster emergency management. At the beginning of the urban flood disaster, how to choose an appropriate response plan and implement it in time is an important way to effectively reduce disaster losses. Starting with the basic concept of flood disaster, this study studies and discusses the related theories of flood disaster emergency management, introduces the general situation of flood disaster emergency management, and analyzes the application of scenario construction technology in emergency management.

Multi-level governance in the uneven integration of the city regions: Evidence of the Shanghai City Region, China

City-regionalism has been manipulated as the primary strategy in China to enhance the competitiveness of local authorities. However, as local governments sometimes fail to share a common goal favourable to their interest, city-regionalism faces various problems. This article focuses on multi-level governance (MLG) at the sub-national scale within the city region and its influence on the city-regionalisation. By revealing the process and spatial outcome of cross-boundary integration in the Shanghai City Region (SHCR), this study discovers that the city regionalisation of SHCR has undergone three stages of evolution, resulting in the current uneven integration in the peripheries manifested in economic, social and spatial dimensions. By investigating the motivations behind inter-jurisdictional and inter-scalar cooperation among local governments based on the MLG theory, this study concludes that the pursuit for the economic spill-over can be distinctly identified from the provincial to the county level governments. During the process of city-regionalisation, multi-scalar governance and inter-jurisdictional interaction were adopted by the sub-national governments to pursue the options that favour the interests of each side. However, these seemingly harmonious initiatives have not led to collaboration and cooperation among local agencies. Nevertheless, they have instead induced contested strategies manipulated to seek the best interests of each side whereby conflicts and negotiation have emerged and reflected on spatial shaping towards uneven integration. During this process, the essential role of the provincial governments engaged in MLG in city regionalisation are highlighted.

The Running Track of Government Responsibility During the Pandemic, Characteristic Analysis of Policy Documents Relevant to the COVID-19 Pandemic Released by Beijing Municipal Government in 2020.

Objective: Provide a reference point for the division of labor during the collaboration of multiple departments and the planning for the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic of departments of the Beijing Municipal Government, from the perspective of policy documents.Methods: Policy documents and daily updates on COVID-19 cases published in 2020 are taken from the official website of Beijing Municipal Government and Beijing Municipal Health Commission. The characteristics of the pandemic situation and the content of relevant documents issued by different departments are described in five stages.Results: There were 988 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Beijing in 2020, and policy analysis covered 444 documents (257 policy documents and 187 explanations of policy). A total of 153 policy documents were directly issued by the Beijing Municipal Government and its 45 subordinate commissions and bureaus, while others were policy forwarding from the central government and its relevant departments, county-level governments of Beijing and other organizations. Most cases and documents emerged during the initial stage of the pandemic (Level-I of the Emergency Response, which is the most serious). It was found that as many as 109 documents published by Beijing Municipal Government during the Level I emergency response period were relevant to economic and social development, 83 documents were related to disease control and medical services, and the rest were in close relation to the production and daily life of the people. Overall, major policy measures taken were relevant to 7 fields: finance, transportation, economic activities, employment people's lives, epidemic prevention and control and medical insurance. Policy implementation objectives were centered on promoting epidemic prevention and control and maintaining the stability of social production and residents' life. However, there are different emphases in different stages of the epidemic.Conclusion: Beijing municipality realized an effective mode of collaboration among multiple departments and organizations in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic, which was an example of the practice of “Health in All Policies.”

Political hierarchy and urban primacy: Evidence from China

This paper studies the distributional effects of a centralisation reform of China’s political hierarchy on regional urbanisation. Initiated in 1983, the reform, implemented over a 20-year period, transferred the decision-making powers of county-level governments to prefecture-level governments. We use a difference-in-differences approach to evaluate the heterogeneous urbanisation of counties in response to this centralisation reform. The distributional effects include greater urban primacy and a more marked core–periphery structure at the prefecture level. Further analyses reveal that the results are driven by the reallocation of fiscal resources and industrial production based on both productivity advantages and political favouritism.

The Impacts of Flattening Fiscal Reform on Health Expenditure in China.

Introduction: A number of provinces have implemented a fiscal reform of flattening government since the first decade of this century in China. This study aims to quantitatively analyze the influences of this government fiscal reform on county-level health expenditure. We also bring forward policy suggestions for improving county-level fiscal system and healthcare delivery.Methods: We collected a novel longitudinal county-level data from 2003 to 2010, including counties' socioeconomic data, fiscal revenue, and health expenditure. Jilin Province, Hebei Province, and Anhui Province were selected as representative samples for this policy evaluation. The study employed a time-varying difference-in-difference model specification to investigate the impacts of flattening fiscal reform on health expenditure.Results: The analyses find that the fiscal system reforms of the three provinces have a significantly positive impact on the health expenditure of county-level governments. However, we find no policy effects on the proportion of health expenditure to fiscal expenditure of county-level governments. The estimation results are robust after controlling several background variables.Conclusion: The results yield important policy insights that public finance and its reform significantly impacts health expenditures in China. The government may still need to strengthen the transfer payment system to guarantee the social welfare provision in healthcare.

Regional Consumption Responses and the Aggregate Fiscal Multiplier

We use regional variation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009-2012) to analyze the effect of government spending on consumer spending. Our consumption data come from household-level retail purchases in Nielsen and auto purchases from Equifax credit balances. We estimate that a $1 increase in county-level government spending increases consumer spending by $0.18. We translate the regional consumption responses to an aggregate fiscal multiplier using a multi-region, New Keynesian model with heterogeneous agents and incomplete markets. Our model successfully generates the estimated positive local multiplier, a result that distinguishes our incomplete markets model from models with complete markets. The aggregate consumption multiplier is 0.4, which implies an output multiplier higher than one. The aggregate consumption multiplier is almost twice the local estimate because trade linkages propagate government spending across regions.

Rural Collective Construction Land Transfer and Intergovernmental Power Allocation under the Background of Provincial Management at County Level

This paper uses the materials obtained from theoretical analysis and field visit and research on the circulation of rural collective construction land and the allocation of inter-governmental power under the background of provincial management at county level. Research and analysis found that the current power structure of China’s rural collective construction land transfer is distributed like a sword hilt, which is actually a manifestation of weakening the county-level government’s ability to allocate land resources. In the practice of county administrated by province reform, in order to ensure the most effective way for the new urbanization and industrialization led by the county-level government to interact and comprehensively advance, it is necessary to reconstruct the domestic collective construction land transfer power allocation system, so as to realize the combination of collective construction land transfer and provincial management at county level.