Orthodox economists' definition of public choice theory: the "government failure" of public choice theory is the economics and politics that study government decision-making. Public choice theory analyzes the operation of different electoral mechanisms, not the ideal mechanism of all personal preferences and social choices. State intervention in unfair distribution can not improve economic efficiency or income caused by government failure; It also studies the shortsightedness of American congressmen, and the government failed because of the lack of strict budget campaign funds.
The origin of public choice theory can be traced back to the end of Wicksell, a Swedish economist in the19th century, who made it easier to obtain political resources for the consistency of doctrines and principles. It really became an academic trend in the 1940s, 1960s and early 1970s. The theory of public choice holds that: national election rules, the theory of various economic interest groups, the theory of rent-seeking, the theory of government failure and the theory of constitutional economics. Methodological individualism, economic hypothesis and political market are the most unique research methods. Methodological individualism refers to the behavior of all behaviors; Excluding the behavior of individual members, there will be no social group passbook reality. The assumption of economics is that activities in the political field are also aimed at maximizing personal interests, based on cost-benefit analysis. The political concept of politics and market is a series of motivational processes, political processes and economic processes of individuals, groups and egos based on trading motives and interest exchange.
The economic crisis of the whole capitalist world in 1930s broke the illusion of "universal market" in traditional economics-a completely competitive market system, which can automatically realize the optimal allocation of social resources. This objectively promoted the rise of Keynesianism. Keynesian economics advocates abandoning laissez-faire market economy policy and implementing government intervention to correct market failure and improve economic efficiency. However, strengthening government intervention, the limitations and defects of government intervention are increasingly exposed, the government deficit is growing, the government scale is expanding, a large number of government expenditures fall into the hands of special interest groups, the government's pocket social welfare plan fails, and the economy stagnates and expands. The theory of public choice is to overcome the research of western mainstream economics on market supply and demand and their corresponding economic decisions, and to limit political factors to exogenous variables in economic decisions. Applying economic analysis to the political analysis of the market has opened a black box for the government, aiming at revealing "government failure" and trying to overcome the disadvantages of government intervention. As Buchanan said, "market failure is a sufficient condition for the government to deal with no problems", at least it is a serious defect of the government and the market.
The theory of public choice is based on the economic hypothesis, trying to make personal choice. In the market economy, the behavior and political behavior in the open market are brought into a unified analysis model, that is, the economic model, while the political system of Keynesian economics with correct theoretical defects is beyond the center of economic analysis.
Buchanan's theory: the limitation of government intervention in market economy or government failure according to economic analysis model. This is the core issue of public choice theory.
The so-called government failure does not well meet the personalized needs of public products of democratic modernization of political power. Public relations departments that provide public goods often waste and abuse resources, resulting in a decline in the scale or efficiency of public expenditure. Government activities are not always "effective" in theory. Buchanan: "As an agent of public interest, the government's role is to make up for the defects of the market economy, and the social effect of brokers is higher than that before government intervention. Otherwise, the existence of the government has no economic significance, but the government's decision-making often fails to achieve this goal. Some policies have had the opposite effect, weakening the "positive role" of state intervention in society and weakening rather than improving social welfare. " Therefore, he raised a question: why does government intervention have a "negative impact" and make up for these shortcomings from the system. Buchanan's answers to these questions constitute the public choice theory of government failure.
This paper analyzes the root causes of the failure of several governments in Buchanan, and puts forward specific policy suggestions.
(A) the inefficiency of government policies, that is, the mistakes of public policies. Public policy is mainly government decision-making, and the basic means of government intervention in economic life is to formulate and implement public policy. Public choice theory holds that market decision-making is different from non-market decision-making. Choose a single decision-making unit in government decision-making, but the final decision-making is usually collective, not individual. The decision-making objects of public goods are realized in a certain order through the political market (that is, votes reflect policy support). Therefore, compared with market decision-making, political decision-making is a very complicated process with considerable uncertainty and many difficulties, obstacles or restrictions, which makes it difficult for the government to formulate and implement good or reasonable public policies.
Buchanan, it seems that there are many reasons for public decision-making: (1) society does not actually exist as the goal of government decision-making, which has been proved by the so-called Arrow impossibility theorem of public interest. "Excluding the possibility, it is impossible to express the personal preference order of social preferences" and the question of "social demand" has not been answered, so people have reason to question the necessity and rationality of government intervention in economic activities (2). Even if there is a sense of social public interest, it is difficult to realize the public decision-making mechanism because it has inherent weaknesses, and the purpose of this interest is (3) to make decisions under the condition of incomplete information. There are always many difficulties and costs in obtaining decision-making information. Both voters and politicians have incomplete information, so the lack of most public policy information can easily lead to decision-making mistakes. (4) The short-sighted effect of voters. "Because of the complexity of the policy effect, it is difficult for most voters to predict its future impact and only pay attention to the direct impact. Politicians seeking re-election will take the initiative to satisfy the short-sightedness of voters, and making good policies will do more harm than good in the long run. (5) The "rational ignorance" of voters. In real life, "because voters need to pay a certain cost to make decisions and collect candidates' information, as a rational economic man, he weighs the calculation of cost and benefit." If the cost is too high, voters will not vote. "Many voters often have the psychology of hitchhiking and hope that others will vote and enjoy success. This is the so-called "rational and ignorant" voters, which will lead to politicians who pass the votes not representing their interests, and the formulation of policies can only represent the interests of some people at best.
(2) Inefficiency of government agencies. The government failure theory holds that due to the inefficiency of government agencies: (1) The supply of public goods monopolized by bureaucrats lacks competitive pressure, and the absence of competitors is likely to lead to excessive investment in the production of public goods that exceed social needs. On the other hand, protected by the lifelong employment law, there is not enough pressure to improve their work efficiency. (2) Without the incentive mechanism to reduce costs, administrative resources are often wasted. First of all, officials spend taxpayers' money, without property rights constraints, and all activities are not worried about costs. Secondly, the power of officials is an unlimited overdraft of monopoly. (3) Supervision of incomplete information. Theoretically, the power of a politician or government. Officials are alienated from people's rights and cannot do whatever they want. They must obey the political supervision of citizens' representatives. However, in the real world, this regulatory function will be incomplete information of poor supervision, and coupled with the aforementioned government monopoly, regulators may be manipulated by regulators.
(3) Government rent-seeking. Rent-seeking voters, especially one of interest groups, urge the government to help form a monopoly through lobbying, bribery and other legal or illegal efforts in order to obtain high monopoly profits. "It can be seen that the profit obtained by rent-seekers is the result of non-production, but a non-productive feature of rent-seeking due to the distribution of existing production results. At the same time, on the premise of rent, seeking authoritative government intervention in market trading activities, authoritative government intervention leads to ineffective allocation of resources and distortion of distribution pattern, resulting in a large number of social costs: on the one hand, resource waste, political rent-seeking caused by economic rent-seeking activities, on the other hand, the loss of social efficiency at the expense of rent-seeking success. Victims may lead to power struggles among government officials, which will affect the government's reputation and increase the cost of ICAC. According to the public choice theory, there are three kinds of rent-seeking: (1) rent, seeking government control; (2) Lease seeks to transfer tariffs and import and export quotas; (3) Government rent-seeking.
(four) the expansion of government departments, including the expansion of government departments. Government agencies increase the level of personnel expenditure and the growth of government departments. Buchanan and others explain why it is self-expansion from the following five aspects: (1) canceling the expansion caused by the government providing public goods and externalities; (2) The redistribution of government income and wealth leads to expansion; (3) The existence of interest groups leads to inflation; (4) The existing bureaucracy leads to inflation; (5) Fiscal illusion leads to expansion.
Buchanan and Buchanan's school of public choice expressed deep doubts about the existing heads of state and government in the western democratic system, saying: "The heavier public choice theory replaced the government's public choice theory with a pessimistic concept of color set, and the concept of romantic fantasy opened up a new way of thinking. Here, the behavior of the government and rulers, romantic and illusory views have always been what the government can do and should be replaced. " In addition, this new view is more in line with the facts we have observed. "
Third, remedy the government's policy mistakes, because the current selection mechanism is based on political opinions.
To sum up, under the current democratic system, a choice mechanism can be regarded as the best choice mechanism or the effective choice mechanism. Market failure, so where is the way out? The theory of public choice puts forward two viewpoints: one is market-oriented reform, and the other is constitutional reform. The former mainly puts forward Chicago School and public choice theory, while the latter mainly puts forward University of Virginia and public choice theory.
The so-called market-oriented reform is an attempt to improve operational efficiency, and the latter's economic market has introduced a competitive political market. Ideas? Market-oriented reform mainly includes three aspects: (1) clearly define public goods-public land on the high seas, public resources-property rights, eliminate hunger, and use these public goods to "ride" predatory consumption; (2) Introducing competition among government officials to encourage the public sector to rebuild its production organization. (3) Redesign the preference display mechanism of public products so that voters can show their preferences as truly as possible.
The so-called constitutional reform is an attempt to impose constitutional rules on government power and establish a set of economic and political activities. The government chooses theorists by reforming the decision-making rules, overcomes the restrictions of government intervention and avoids government failure. Taking Buchanan's constitutional problem as an example, it is believed that to improve the government's administrative process, the rules must be reformed first. Therefore, from the perspective of such a "public choice", Buchanan focused on the analysis. From the constitutional point of view, the government makes rules, rules or restrictions restricting economic and political activities. They did not put forward specific suggestions to choose guidelines or normative suggestions for decision makers, but carried out constitutional reform and put forward a series of rules and procedures needed for policy making, so as to make more reasonable policy choices and reduce or avoid decision-making mistakes.
Reform of the four major government institutions in China.
1 reference
The Asian Wall Street Journal's theory of government failure and its policies are conducive to growth commented: "It is more difficult than China's institutional reform. Everyone does not want to decentralize, and institutional reform is the principle of consent and actual opposition. " Since the reform and opening up, China has experienced more than three major government institutional reforms, from 1982 to 1983, 1988, 1993 to 1996, but so far, China's government institutional reform has not completely got rid of the predicament. So, how to make institutional reform completely out of the "strange circle"?
Undoubtedly, the theory of government failure and the theory of public choice provide good theoretical support and policy suggestions for China's institutional reform.
With the change of mode orientation, our government has changed from a political government management mode to a democratic service-oriented government mode. At present, there are still mistakes in China's political and public choice theory and policy. The difficulty of scientific decision-making, formulation and effective implementation still leads to rent-seeking activities of government intervention. In the market, because economic development is a continuous process, when different government behavior patterns can't be completely separated, it is easy to transplant behavior simply to the model of government management economy under the planned economy system. We expect a new and more efficient government model, and the newly established basic rules are formed like Buchanan's expenditure: "It is not important to change the outcome of a game or competition, but it is important to change the rules. The fundamental defects in the traditional government system cannot fail in some specific operations, such as the lack of accuracy of the government, the planning and scientificity of the government, and the isolation between localities and departments. In fact, the inevitable product of these defects is the government model of excessive concentration of institutional government, no fundamental reform and excessive concentration of power. It only changed the specific operating procedures and links under the old system, and did not help solve the problem.
Therefore, in order to play the role of the government more effectively and correct the government failure in the current government reform, it is especially necessary to pay attention to the legal system and system construction. Based on the analysis of government failure and policy suggestions of public choice theory, the reform of government institutions in China should be carried out in the following three aspects:
First of all, we should change our ideas, get rid of the concept of omnipotence of the government formed under the traditional planning system, and correctly understand the government's intervention in the economy. We should not exaggerate and blindly weaken the economically wise governments of the eastern, western and southern countries "[1]. In the process of developing market economy, we need to grasp the boundaries of government intervention, determine the content, scope and means of government intervention, and give play to the main role of market mechanism and the supplementary role of government intervention.
Secondly, the introduction of competition mechanism and market-oriented government management reform has become the main government function in the economic function centered on economic construction, and the government's public goods in the economy are the most important reason for the abuse of economic functions due to monopoly. When determining the economic functions and institutions of the government, on the one hand, we should introduce competition mechanism as much as possible, break monopoly, improve the efficiency and quality of public services, on the other hand, we should reduce the financial pressure of the government. Especially in telecommunications, electric power, railway transportation and other basic industries, if there is natural monopoly, it is necessary to introduce a competition mechanism, to some extent, allow and encourage private enterprises, so as to improve the management efficiency and level of government public service departments.
Finally, the law and supervision system, strengthen the government and the rule of law, the government's behavior is ruled by law, and the theory of public choice emphasizes risky reform, focusing on constitutional reform, laws and regulations, especially public decision-making rules. Market economy is economic rule of law, and it is the establishment of market economic order ruled by law in modern society. We must rely on the law to ensure that political and social life must also rely on the law to regulate. Therefore, in the process of transformation, under the condition of market economy, we must strengthen the role of legal system and government legal system, especially the legalization and implementation of public policy decision-making, so as to minimize unfair corruption caused by any government behavior and arbitrariness and improve the quality of public policy formulation and implementation. The government is also a rational economic man, which reminds us that in addition to strengthening the self-monitoring mechanism of the government, it is also necessary to strengthen the external supervision and restraint mechanism, and step up the formulation of laws and regulations to supervise government behavior in order to prevent government corruption and injustice.
Comprehensive and dialectical theory of government failure and public choice.
Although the theory of government failure and the school of public choice point out that the western political system and policies are insightful and practical. The disadvantages of public choice theory exist, and there are conflicts that cannot be solved. Some theoretical systems are a bit confusing and cannot be justified.
The criticism of public choice theory mainly lies in the following aspects: government failure
① Motivation
Assuming the public choice theory of securities companies, the author thinks that everyone's behavioral motives are complex and diverse, and cannot be simply divided into self-interest or altruism. It contains many personal motives and selfish desires, which penetrate deeply and widely, so every public institution and private institution must restrain and limit its material interests in some way. However, most people's motives also include different degrees of generosity, selfless moral factors, and financial obligations to accept other people's living habits and external interests. Therefore, people's motivation can not be attributed to a single, selfish motivation. Therefore, the description of the political motivation of studying the choice theory is true to some extent, not based on the observation of real life, but mainly based on the assumption that it is formal. Only by choosing the role of a theorist from the public can there be multiple motivations, one motivation, and then the only motivation theory can imagine a dynamic world. This is obviously unreasonable.
② The role of political market and government in it.
To establish a democratic political system, China's political party system, politics and electoral system are different from those in the West and have their own special conditions. It is not advisable to copy the origin and maturity theory of public choice in the western political party system.
On the other hand, in the process of economic transformation, industrialization and transition from traditional economy to market economy system in China, effective intervention is impossible without the positive role of the government. In different countries, the role of the government is different in different periods. "Even such a poor country cannot expect to passively open to the world economy like the four little dragons in Asia.
Therefore, the theory I learned, the theory of public choice, and the failure of the government must be dialectical children. Political system reform is a very difficult thing. Without quick success, the "visible hand" reform will be the key to the success of China's economic transformation and industrialization and must be taken seriously.