Promotion Incentive, Population Mobility and Public Service Expenditure
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I have carefully reviewed this manuscript and below is my decision.
- Overall in the introduction, there are no clear justifications for why we need this study. To be more specific, it is not clear why we need this research from the theoretical point of view or what is missing from the body of our literature review. The introduction section is very poorly written. This section should be rewritten.
-The introduction is weak. It's not fluent.
- Why from 2010 to 2018? It should be explained in detail.
-How were dependent and independent variables determined? Not clear.
- Why were the variables included in the model with logarithms? Should be explained in detail.
-Do the models provide basic assumptions? Model assumptions should be explained in detail.
-Why were 8 different models established?
-The findings are very mixed. It is not clear what is being conveyed.
- The references is weak.
The current work is not suitable for publication.
Author Response
Reviewer 1:
（1）- Overall in the introduction, there are no clear justifications for why we need this study. To be more specific, it is not clear why we need this research from the theoretical point of view or what is missing from the body of our literature review. The introduction section is very poorly written. This section should be rewritten.
-The introduction is weak. It's not fluent.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. The author revised the introduction based on the comments and recommendations of specialists. Details can be found in the following part.
“All citizens have a fundamental right to basic public services, and the government has a vital responsibility to guarantee that everyone receives these services. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese government has made significant efforts to maintain and improve people's standard of living, and the building of China's core public service system has been steadily strengthened. The proportion of financial input for people's livelihood as a percentage of fiscal spending has been expanding, and numerous service facilities have been vastly enhanced, with the support capability, sense of well-being, and sense of gain of the populace continuously improving. In the Report to the 20th CPC National Congress of the Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping once again emphasized the need to pay greater attention to safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods in development, to encourage joint efforts to create a better life, and to continually fulfill the aspirations of the people for a better life.
Improving the level of public sector expenditure is a crucial pillar for protecting and enhancing people's standard of living. Promotion incentives and population movement are two of the many elements that significantly impact public sector expenditures. In the past, under the background of GDP assessment, local governments have formed a situation of prioritizing the economy over people's livelihood, which is primarily manifested in the relatively perfect infrastructure such as energy and transportation, and the obvious lack of public services for people's livelihood such as medical care, education, culture, sports and media, social security, and employment, which will have a significant impact on the accessibility and equality of individuals’ access to public services (Wang et al., 2013). The fluctuating population also has a significant effect on the cost of providing public services. Local governments allocate public service resources such as education, medical care, and culture in their administrative areas according to the registered population in their jurisdiction, which greatly restricts their actual public service supply capacity, and there is a certain competition and exclusivity for residents outside the space to enjoy public service resources. Regarding the population, it may result in contradictions such as an excess of public goods, resulting in idle assets and waste. Based on the aforementioned concerns, this article considers promotion incentive, population movement, and public service expenditures within the same framework. This study plays an important role in improving policies of the public service system, and people's perceptions of fairness, gain, and pleasure.”
（2）Why from 2010 to 2018? It should be explained in detail.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. The China Statistical Yearbook, China Urban Statistical Yearbook, China Population and Employment Statistical Yearbook, etc., are the primary sources for data on promotions, population movement, and public service spending. Due to the fact that the most recent data can only be updated to 2018, the deadline is 2018. China is conducting its sixth census in 2010, and there are some deficiencies in the data of earlier years. In order to illustrate the influence and mechanism of promotion incentives and population migration on public service expenditures, the author chose a period of approximately ten years, spanning from 2010 to 2018.
（3）How were dependent and independent variables determined? Not clear.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. Public goods refer to goods and services corresponding to private goods, which cannot or cannot be effectively produced and supplied by enterprises and individuals through the market mechanism, but are mainly provided by public organizations such as the government to meet the public needs. There are many kinds of public goods, including products in education, culture, radio, television, medical treatment, applied scientific research, sports and other fields. Considering the availability of data, this paper selects the most representative financial expenditures in the fields of medical care, education, culture, sports and media, social security and employment to measure the scale and level of regional basic public service expenditures. Through combing the domestic and foreign literature, we can find that promotion incentive will lead to the bias of local government's decision-making.
Public goods refer to goods and services corresponding to private goods, which cannot or cannot be effectively produced and supplied by enterprises and individuals through the market mechanism, but are mainly provided by public organizations such as the government to meet the public needs. There are numerous types of public goods, including items in the domains of education, culture, radio, television, medical care, applied scientific research, and sports. The article measures the amount and level of regional basic public service expenditures by selecting the most representative financial expenditures in the categories of medical care, education, culture, sports and media, social security, and employment, based on the availability of data. Through a review of both domestic and international literature, we can conclude that promotion incentives will influence the local government's decision-making process. Generally, under the incentive mechanism oriented by GDP, local governments will pay more attention to economic growth, and the level of foreign direct investment and opening to the outside world are important indicators to measure economic growth. Therefore, this variable is selected for measurement. The floating population will lead to the scale and level of regional public goods allocation. Typically, the influx of people increases the supply of public goods, whereas the emigration of population decreases the supply. Based on the above analysis, promotion incentives and population mobility are the most critical variables that affect the supply of public goods.
（4）Why were the variables included in the model with logarithms? Should be explained in detail.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. In the empirical analysis, there are two primary reasons why logarithm should be used. On the one hand, we adopted this method to minimize the absolute difference between data during the process of data collection. Avoid individual excessive values affecting empirical results; Taking the logarithm can also reduce multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity among variables (satisfying the basic assumption of the same variance). On the other hand, after taking the logarithm, its interpretation becomes more economical (elastic).
（5）Do the models provide basic assumptions? Model assumptions should be explained in detail.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. The model's underlying assumptions, primarily from the literature and theoretical models, have been adjusted, as have the relevant contents.
In recent years, the relevant policies issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China have made it clear that the evaluation standard of govern-ment officials is no longer based on GDP as the only evaluation index. High-quality development goals not only require local governments to attach importance to economic growth, but also pay attention to improving people’s livelihood and making people’s lives better. In recent years, some related studies have confirmed the conclusion that promotion incentives have a positive effect on public service expenditure. Zou (2015) found that promotion incentives are positively related to the supply of social public goods such as medical care and education. Using the data of German federal states, Fischer & Wigger (2016) studied the relationship between local government competition and higher education expenditure. The analysis revealed a positive correlation between local government competition and investment on higher education. The research found that the increase of government competition leads to the increase of education ex-penditure (Gui et al., 2016). Yang et al. (2017) used the spatial Durbin model to examine the influence of official promotion incentive on the supply of public goods. The study found that the political promotion incentive of local officials has a positive impact on the supply of public goods, but this impact has obvious time lag effect. Hu et al. (2019) found that promotion incentive is conducive to improving the efficiency of financial social security expenditure. Based on the above analysis, the influence of promotion incentive on public service expenditure needs to be further confirmed. This paper puts forward the following hypothesis 1:
H1a: Promotion incentives have a negative impact on unproductive public service expenditure.
H1b: Promotion incentives have a positive impact on unproductive public service expenditure.
Since the 1980s, the intensification of rural reform, as well as the stability and perfection of the home contract responsibility system, have galvanized the passion of farmers and further emancipated social production.
Emigration of young people from rural areas led to a decrease in the supply of rural public goods and caused a lack of public services in rural areas (Liu & Ma, 2012; Xiang, 2012). According to Chen (2017), immigration has a negative competitive effect and a positive financial effect on the supply of public goods. The type of influence immigra-tion has on the supply of public goods depends on the relative magnitude of these two effects. Based on the panel data of China’s prefecture-level cities in 2010-2014, Yang et al. (2017) examines the impact of floating population size on the allocation of basic public service resources. It is found that the larger the floating population size, the significantly lower the per capita general education expenditure, social security and employment expenditure, and medical and health expenditure, and the impact at the regional level shows obvious heterogeneity. Based on the above analysis, the following hypothesis 2 is put forward:
H2: Population mobility has a negative impact on unproductive public service expenditure.
（6）Why were 8 different models established?
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. The variables presented in this study comprise four kinds of public goods expenditures: medical and health expenditures, education expenditures, cultural, sports, and media expenditures, and social security and employment expenditures. Table 2 contains eight models due to this fact. Consequently, at least four regression models must be developed. Models 1，3，5，7 report regression findings without core explanatory factors, which are solely used to evaluate the influence of control variables (or without core explanatory variables) on public service expenditures, whereas the eight models in Table 3 constitute a robustness test. Models 1, 2, 3, and 4 changed the independent variables, whereas models 5, 6, 7 and 8 changed the dependent variable in order to improve the reliability and robustness of the empirical results presented in this study.
（7）The findings are very mixed. It is not clear what is being conveyed.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of promotion incentives and population mobility on public service expenditure. Through literature review and theoretical analysis, we find that there is a close relationship between promotion incentives, population mobility and public service expenditure. The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between these variables and mechanisms exist among these variables, and whether or not this influence is affected differently by different locations. This report is useful as a reference for adjusting population policies and government assessment mechanisms.
（8）The references is weak.
Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the following references.
Wang Fang, Liu Hongqin, Chen Shuo. Official Career Incentive and Local Government Expenditure Efficiency. China Journal of Economics, 2021,8(03):173-198.
Fischer G B, Wigger B U. Fiscal Competition and Higher Education Spending in Germany. German Economic Review, 2016, 17(2):234-252.
Liu Chengyu, Ma Shuang. Discussion on the reformation of pattern of rural public products supply based on a tendency of rural hollow and aging of population in China. Rural economy,2012(04):8-11.
Xiang Qingqing. Investigation and thinking on the hollowing out of rural population-a case study of Cangxi County, Sichuan Province. Rural economy, 2012(06):97-100.
Chen Gang. Does migration move natives' cheese? evidence from the provision of local public goods. Population & Economics. 2017(02):66-76
Reviewer 2 Report
Very good job. The topic is very relevant. The estimation methods are robust and the results are sound.
Minor corrections are recommended:
1) Manuscript writing
Please, check the length of some sentences (ie, page 2, first paragraph: "The mainstream view of promotion incentive is that the promotion tournament of local government officials guided by the GDP assessment standard will encourage local governments to invest limited financial funds in productive financial expenditure areas that are conducive to economic performance, such as capital construction investment, investment in tapping the potential of enterprises and other fields, while ignoring the unproductive financial expenditure areas with relatively small economic contributions such as medical care, education, culture, sports and media" (7 rows). They conspire against clarity. There are some other sentences in the manuscript that also need attention so, please, check all the writing thoroughly.
See, for example, the sentence "From the regression results of each control variable." on page 6. The phrase has no sense, there is no verb.
2) References. Please check:
Page 3. Gui et al., 2016). Is the same as reference #15 (Shi Guifen, Liu Huan, Wang, Jia, 2016) on the reference list (page 12)?
Page 5. Li (2016). Is the same as reference #24 (Li Tuo, Li Bin, Yu Man, 2016) on the references (page 13)? Shouldn't be Li et al (2016)?
Reference #6 (Wang Xianbin, Xu Xianbin, 2009) was not found in the manuscript.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Very good job. The topic is very relevant. The estimation methods are robust and the results are sound.
Minor corrections are recommended:
1) Manuscript writing
Please, check the length of some sentences (ie, page 2, first paragraph: "The mainstream view of promotion incentive is that the promotion tournament of local government officials guided by the GDP assessment standard will encourage local governments to invest limited financial funds in productive financial expenditure areas that are conducive to economic performance, such as capital construction investment, investment in tapping the potential of enterprises and other fields, while ignoring the unproductive financial expenditure areas with relatively small economic contributions such as medical care, education, culture, sports and media" (7 rows). They conspire against clarity. There are some other sentences in the manuscript that also need attention so, please, check all the writing thoroughly.
See, for example, the sentence "From the regression results of each control variable." on page 6. The phrase has no sense, there is no verb.
Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have polished the English of the full text.
2) References. Please check:
Page 3. Gui et al., 2016). Is the same as reference #15 (Shi Guifen, Liu Huan, Wang, Jia, 2016) on the reference list (page 12)?
Page 5. Li (2016). Is the same as reference #24 (Li Tuo, Li Bin, Yu Man, 2016) on the references (page 13)? Shouldn't be Li et al (2016)?
Reference #6 (Wang Xianbin, Xu Xianbin, 2009) was not found in the manuscript.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We are very sorry to make obvious mistakes and have revised them as follows:
Gui et al., 2016). is the same as reference #15 (Shi Guifen, Liu Huan, Wang, Jia, 2016).
“The research found that the increase of government competition leads to the increase of education expenditure (Shi et al., 2016).”
Li (2016). is the same as reference #24 (Li Tuo, Li Bin, Yu Man, 2016) on the references (page 13).
“This study utilized the panel fixation effect model based on relevant research by Ding and Deng Kebin (2011), Li et al (2016), and Liu and Zhang (2018).”
Reviewer 3 Report
The research carried out in the manuscript is interesting and current, however there are some improvements that should be done before the publications, so major revisions are suggested.
In the abstract it is suggested to add a brief description of the method used in the paper.
The introduction is interesting, at the end is recommended to add a short paragraph describing the organization of the paper e the content of the subsequent sections.
The literature review is quite short, it is advisable to increase the references on the theme and to deepen the research on the alternative methods usable in order to achieve the expected results.
It is also suggested to add a short paragraph describing the rationale of the methodology used, and to describe in a more efficient way all the tables, for examples what type of information the analysis of the descriptive statistics give to the research?
In subsection 3.2 it is advisable to explain better of the 8 different models are structured starting from only 4 equations, and how the models are connected to the two main hypothesis.
It is also suggested to deepen the research about going "beyond the GDP" because current literature in this field is very rich.
Author Response
（1）In the abstract it is suggested to add a brief description of the method used in the paper.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We are very sorry that the previous discussion of research methodologies was not very clear, so we have made the following changes:
“This study aims to examine the influence of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure. With the panel data of 30 provinces (excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) in China from 2010 to 2018, fixed effect model was employed to conduct the empirical research first and then analyze heterogeneity of the impact. In addition, the robustness was examined by substituting core explanatory variables and explained variables and using spa-tial econometric model. Results indicated that promotion incentive and population mobility had significant negative effects on public service expenditure (medical care, education, culture, sports and media, social security and employment). By replacing the explained variables, core explan-atory variables and using spatial economic model, the research conclusion was still stable and reliable. In different regions, promotion incentive and population mobility had different effects on different types of public service expenditure. In addition, it was revealed that the improvement of urbanization level, economic development level, population density, residents’ education level and the proportion of tertiary industry had a significant positive impact on public service ex-penditure. The findings in this study can provide useful references for policy makers to allocate public service expenditure.”
（2）The introduction is interesting, at the end is recommended to add a short paragraph describing the organization of the paper the content of the subsequent sections.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have added the organization of the paper in the end of the introduction.
“The subsequent sections of this research are organized as follows: The first section is introduction; the second section is literature review; the third section consists of measures and analytical strategy. The fourth section consists of empirical results and analysis (containing basic regression results, robustness test, and heterogeneity test); the fifth section is conclusion.”
（3）The literature review is quite short, it is advisable to increase the references on the theme and to deepen the research on the alternative methods usable in order to achieve the expected results.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. In order to make our research more clearly, the following contents are added in the literature review section:
Wang et al. (2021) discovered that the promotion incentive of officials had no significant impact on the efficiency of education expenditures, but had a positive impact on the efficiency of productive financial expenditures, such as infrastructure.
Using the data of German federal states, Fischer & Wigger (2016) studied the relationship between local government competition and higher education expenditure. The analysis revealed a positive correlation between local government competition and investment on higher education.
Emigration of young people from rural areas led to a decrease in the supply of rural public goods and caused a lack of public services in rural areas (Liu & Ma, 2012; Xiang, 2012). According to Chen (2017), immigration has a negative competitive effect and a positive financial effect on the supply of public goods. The type of influence immigration has on the supply of public goods depends on the relative magnitude of these two effects.
Wang Fang, Liu Hongqin, Chen Shuo. Official Career Incentive and Local Government Expenditure Efficiency. China Journal of Economics, 2021,8(03):173-198.
Fischer G B, Wigger B U. Fiscal Competition and Higher Education Spending in Germany. German Economic Review, 2016, 17(2):234-252.
Liu Chengyu, Ma Shuang. Discussion on the reformation of pattern of rural public products supply based on a tendency of rural hollow and aging of population in China. Rural economy,2012(04):8-11.
Xiang Qingqing. Investigation and thinking on the hollowing out of rural population-a case study of Cangxi County, Sichuan Province. Rural economy, 2012(06):97-100.
Chen Gang. Does migration move natives' cheese? evidence from the provision of local public goods. Population & Economics. 2017(02):66-76
（4）It is also suggested to add a short paragraph describing the rationale of the methodology used, and to describe in a more efficient way all the tables, for examples what type of information the analysis of the descriptive statistics give to the research?
Response: We appreciate your suggestions. Following changes were made to Section 3.2:
This study utilized the panel fixation effect model based on relevant research by Ding and Deng Kebin (2011), Li (2016), and Liu and Zhang (2018). In geographic panel data, fixed-effect regression is a type of variable approach that varies with individuals but not over time. One of the n distinct intercepts in the fixed-effect model corresponds to an individual. A succession of binary variables may be used to express these intercepts. Individual fixed effect model, time-point fixed effect model, and time-point individual fixed effect model are the three classifications of the fixed effect model. In this paper, the formula for the double fixed effect model is as follows:
PMexpit=β0+β1Proit+β2Pmsit+δXit+εit （1）
PEexpit=β0+β1Proit+β2Pmsit+δXit+εit （2）
PCexpit=β0+β1Proit+β2Pmsit+δXit+εit （3）
PSexpit=β0+β1Proit+β2Pmsit+δXit+εit （4）
（5）In subsection 3.2 it is advisable to explain better of the 8 different models are structured starting from only 4 equations, and how the models are connected to the two main hypothesis.
Response: We appreciate your suggestions. Following changes were made to Section 3.2:
If the regression coefficient of β1 is significantly negative, then H1a is established, which states that promotion incentive has a negative impact on unproductive public service expenditure. If the regression coefficient of β1 is significantly positive, then H1b is established, which states that promotion incentive has a positive impact on unpro-ductive public service expenditure. β2 represents the regression coefficient for the percentage of the population. If the regression coefficient of β2 is significantly negative, then H2 is established. That is to say population mobility is negatively associated with public service expenditure.
（6）It is also suggested to deepen the research about going "beyond the GDP" because current literature in this field is very rich.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have revised it as follows:
“Local governments' financial spending on various public goods is prioritized differently as a result of promotion. Economic growth can be promoted directly and effectively by productive expenditures such as infrastructure construction, enterprise tapping and transformation, and rural production expenditures. Increasing local government spending on soft public goods such as medical and health care and education has a spillover effect of supporting economic and social growth over the long term, but it does not benefit local politicians with limited tenure in the short term. Therefore, as a result of the incentive, the local government would lower its expenditures in the medical and educational sectors.”
Reviewer 4 Report
I appreciate the work the authors of the paper invested in the manuscript. I also believe that the authors have a good idea of what they want to explore. I would even say, they wish to explore factors influencing the efficiency of public spending. I also see that the authors seek to embed their argument in the broader context of the doctrinal documents and strategies of the Communist Party. Nevertheless, I am also afraid that for some reasons the authors fail to bring the thrust of what they wish to explore to the surface of the analysis.
Since in my professional experience I have dealt with Chinese scholars, I believe that the key problem we are dealing with in this paper is related to language and the cognitive structures that define how we frame and name the social phenomena we intend to explore. This is the most plausible explanation for a mismatch between the title, the introduction and the rest of the paper. I simply cannot understand what the authors seek to convey.
The authors have drawn heavily on Chinese scholarship; we miss contributions from elsewhere.
Author Response
Thank you for suggestions. We have made the following revisions.
This is related to China’s vertical political system. In order to pursue political achievements, local government officials have greater incentives to improve the scale and level of financial expenditures in productive areas such as infrastructure, tapping the potential of enterprises, and ignore the scale and level of financial expenditures in non-productive areas such as medical care, education, culture, sports and media that are difficult to improve in the short term (Xie & Xiao, 2013; Cui & Zhang, 2018; Li & Zhou, 2005; Lin et al., 2011; Yang, 2021).
The push-pull theory of population migration divides the causes of population migration into two aspects: push and pull. The former prompts immigrants to leave their original place of residence. The latter attracts immigrants who want to improve their lives to move to new places of residence (Hear et al，2018).
Due to the existence of the household registration system, it is difficult for the floating population to enjoy the same public services as the registered population (Li, 2020; Cheng, 2022), while there will be surplus supply of public goods in the places where the population flows out, resulting in a waste of financial resources (Liu et al., 2018).However, the floating population with housing property rights have a greater probability of obtaining relatively complete basic public services (Wu, 2022).
Based on macro data at the provincial level, this work empirically investigates the influence of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure using the panel fixed effect model. Previously, most literatures focused solely on the impact of promotion incentive or population mobility on public service expenditure. This research examines the impact of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure simultaneously. This paper tests the robustness by replacing the explained variables, the core explanatory variables, and the transformation model during the testing process, which confirms the conclusion that promotion incentive and population mobility have a significant negative effect on public service expenditure, but there are still some limitations. First, this research merely discusses the influence of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure from a theoretical and empirical standpoint, and the economic principles underlying it remain debatable. This paper, Second, employs macro data at the provincial level, which is limited by the data itself. It fails to investigate the impact of officials' promotion incentives and population mobility on public service expenditure using data from a smaller scale (prefecture-level cities and county-level cities), a longer time span, and a micro level. It remains to be seen whether the research structure of this paper is still reliable. Third, this paper uses per capita foreign direct investment and opening up indicators to measure promotion incentive. The selection of indicators is one-sided, which is not enough for the promotion incentive mechanism. We can build an indicator system of promotion incentive from multiple dimensions such as economic growth, official age and whether to promote. Of course, other indicators such as population mobility also have similar problems.
On the one hand, a service-oriented government should be actively built. The government needs to establish service-oriented and people-oriented management concepts, continuously expand channels, build a platform for communication and interaction with the people, make more on-site visits and research, understand the sentiments of the people, listen to the opinions of the people, pay attention to the livelihood of the people and actively respond to the demands of the people. On the other hand,transfer the core of performance appraisal to the overall regional strength evaluation. The central government can include livelihood indicators into the assessment criteria, and reduce the weight of economic performance to improve the incentive behavior of local government officials, so as to encourage local government officials to make more investment in social livelihood. At the same time, due to historical, political, geographical and other factors, various regions have shown different resource endowments and development conditions in the current society, and a single performance evaluation standard does not apply to all regions. Therefore, the central government needs to make the local leaders in power practice, investigate and analyze the local development, formulate practical work plans, implement them on time after being reviewed and approved by the superior government, and take the work progress assessment as a part of the performance assessment. This measure can not only weaken the pressure brought by competitors at the same level, but also bring real benefits to local development.
Reviewer 5 Report
The article concerns the issue of improve public service expenditure. This type of research is important and can add value to science. Basically the concept of the article, the study designed, the analysis of the results are correct. However, due to the quality requirements of the journal, the article needs improvement. After entering the reviewer's comments, the article may be published. Issues to improve: 1. I suggest reformulating the title of the article so that it does not contain the question. 2. The article cites only 32 items of literature on the subject, which is definitely too little - part 2. Literature review should be extended - especially with the latest items from the years 2020-2022. 3. It is necessary to add a discussion section - this is an extremely important aspect of research, reference to research by other authors, it is worth looking for similar research from previous years as well as the latest (it is also good to look for articles with a large number of citations).
Author Response
Thank you for suggestions. We have made the following revisions.
This is related to China’s vertical political system. In order to pursue political achievements, local government officials have greater incentives to improve the scale and level of financial expenditures in productive areas such as infrastructure, tapping the potential of enterprises, and ignore the scale and level of financial expenditures in non-productive areas such as medical care, education, culture, sports and media that are difficult to improve in the short term (Xie & Xiao, 2013; Cui & Zhang, 2018; Li & Zhou, 2005; Lin et al., 2011; Yang, 2021).
The push-pull theory of population migration divides the causes of population migration into two aspects: push and pull. The former prompts immigrants to leave their original place of residence. The latter attracts immigrants who want to improve their lives to move to new places of residence (Hear et al，2018).
Due to the existence of the household registration system, it is difficult for the floating population to enjoy the same public services as the registered population (Li, 2020; Cheng, 2022), while there will be surplus supply of public goods in the places where the population flows out, resulting in a waste of financial resources (Liu et al., 2018).However, the floating population with housing property rights have a greater probability of obtaining relatively complete basic public services (Wu, 2022).
Based on macro data at the provincial level, this work empirically investigates the influence of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure using the panel fixed effect model. Previously, most literatures focused solely on the impact of promotion incentive or population mobility on public service expenditure. This research examines the impact of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure simultaneously. This paper tests the robustness by replacing the explained variables, the core explanatory variables, and the transformation model during the testing process, which confirms the conclusion that promotion incentive and population mobility have a significant negative effect on public service expenditure, but there are still some limitations. First, this research merely discusses the influence of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure from a theoretical and empirical standpoint, and the economic principles underlying it remain debatable. This paper, Second, employs macro data at the provincial level, which is limited by the data itself. It fails to investigate the impact of officials' promotion incentives and population mobility on public service expenditure using data from a smaller scale (prefecture-level cities and county-level cities), a longer time span, and a micro level. It remains to be seen whether the research structure of this paper is still reliable. Third, this paper uses per capita foreign direct investment and opening up indicators to measure promotion incentive. The selection of indicators is one-sided, which is not enough for the promotion incentive mechanism. We can build an indicator system of promotion incentive from multiple dimensions such as economic growth, official age and whether to promote. Of course, other indicators such as population mobility also have similar problems.
On the one hand, a service-oriented government should be actively built. The government needs to establish service-oriented and people-oriented management concepts, continuously expand channels, build a platform for communication and interaction with the people, make more on-site visits and research, understand the sentiments of the people, listen to the opinions of the people, pay attention to the livelihood of the people and actively respond to the demands of the people. On the other hand,transfer the core of performance appraisal to the overall regional strength evaluation. The central government can include livelihood indicators into the assessment criteria, and reduce the weight of economic performance to improve the incentive behavior of local government officials, so as to encourage local government officials to make more investment in social livelihood. At the same time, due to historical, political, geographical and other factors, various regions have shown different resource endowments and development conditions in the current society, and a single performance evaluation standard does not apply to all regions. Therefore, the central government needs to make the local leaders in power practice, investigate and analyze the local development, formulate practical work plans, implement them on time after being reviewed and approved by the superior government, and take the work progress assessment as a part of the performance assessment. This measure can not only weaken the pressure brought by competitors at the same level, but also bring real benefits to local development.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The contribution of the study to the literature is limited. It is not a study that will improve the publication quality of the journal. The discretion is yours, but it is not appropriate to publish.
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestions. We have made the following revisions:
This is related to China’s vertical political system. In order to pursue political achievements, local government officials have greater incentives to improve the scale and level of financial expenditures in productive areas such as infrastructure, tapping the potential of enterprises, and ignore the scale and level of financial expenditures in non-productive areas such as medical care, education, culture, sports and media that are difficult to improve in the short term (Xie & Xiao, 2013; Cui & Zhang, 2018; Li & Zhou, 2005; Lin et al., 2011; Yang, 2021).
The push-pull theory of population migration divides the causes of population migration into two aspects: push and pull. The former prompts immigrants to leave their original place of residence. The latter attracts immigrants who want to improve their lives to move to new places of residence (Hear et al，2018).
Due to the existence of the household registration system, it is difficult for the floating population to enjoy the same public services as the registered population (Li, 2020; Cheng, 2022), while there will be surplus supply of public goods in the places where the population flows out, resulting in a waste of financial resources (Liu et al., 2018).However, the floating population with housing property rights have a greater probability of obtaining relatively complete basic public services (Wu, 2022).
Based on macro data at the provincial level, this work empirically investigates the influence of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure using the panel fixed effect model. Previously, most literatures focused solely on the impact of promotion incentive or population mobility on public service expenditure. This research examines the impact of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure simultaneously. This paper tests the robustness by replacing the explained variables, the core explanatory variables, and the transformation model during the testing process, which confirms the conclusion that promotion incentive and population mobility have a significant negative effect on public service expenditure, but there are still some limitations. First, this research merely discusses the influence of promotion incentive and population mobility on public service expenditure from a theoretical and empirical standpoint, and the economic principles underlying it remain debatable. This paper, Second, employs macro data at the provincial level, which is limited by the data itself. It fails to investigate the impact of officials' promotion incentives and population mobility on public service expenditure using data from a smaller scale (prefecture-level cities and county-level cities), a longer time span, and a micro level. It remains to be seen whether the research structure of this paper is still reliable. Third, this paper uses per capita foreign direct investment and opening up indicators to measure promotion incentive. The selection of indicators is one-sided, which is not enough for the promotion incentive mechanism. We can build an indicator system of promotion incentive from multiple dimensions such as economic growth, official age and whether to promote. Of course, other indicators such as population mobility also have similar problems.
On the one hand, a service-oriented government should be actively built. The government needs to establish service-oriented and people-oriented management concepts, continuously expand channels, build a platform for communication and interaction with the people, make more on-site visits and research, understand the sentiments of the people, listen to the opinions of the people, pay attention to the livelihood of the people and actively respond to the demands of the people. On the other hand,transfer the core of performance appraisal to the overall regional strength evaluation. The central government can include livelihood indicators into the assessment criteria, and reduce the weight of economic performance to improve the incentive behavior of local government officials, so as to encourage local government officials to make more investment in social livelihood. At the same time, due to historical, political, geographical and other factors, various regions have shown different resource endowments and development conditions in the current society, and a single performance evaluation standard does not apply to all regions. Therefore, the central government needs to make the local leaders in power practice, investigate and analyze the local development, formulate practical work plans, implement them on time after being reviewed and approved by the superior government, and take the work progress assessment as a part of the performance assessment. This measure can not only weaken the pressure brought by competitors at the same level, but also bring real benefits to local development.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors, thank you for accepting the suggestions, I think the text now enhances more the interesting research you have done.
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestions. Your suggestions are very helpful for our manuscript.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate your efforts to respond to reviewer comments. However, after evaluating the comments and concerns from the reviewers, objective errors in the methods, applications, or interpretations were identified in this manuscript that prevents further consideration.
As there is no study that will contribute to the literature, it is not suitable to be published.
