Problems and Countermeasures in the supply of Public goods in Rural Community

From 2004 to 2013, the state issued ten central No. 1 documents with the theme of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", in which the supply of rural public goods was mentioned many times, and the goal of building a new socialist countryside regarded the effective supply of rural public goods as the key, and regarded it as an important factor affecting the level and process of new rural construction. The supply of public goods in rural communities not only directly affects the production and life of villagers, but also directly related to the realization of the goal of new rural construction.

I. Institutional arrangement for the supply of public goods in rural communities

The cancellation of agricultural tax has changed the "balance" pattern of the supply of public goods outside the system since the implementation of the household contract system, and the supply of rural public goods is in a dilemma. Through the redesign of the supply system of public goods, the current supply mechanism of rural public goods is formed, which is dominated by national finance and supplemented by community self-help.

(1) transfer payments based on state finance

Since the construction of the new countryside, the supply of rural public goods is mainly based on the transfer payment of central and local finance. The central government mainly transfers financial input to the supply of rural public utilities and public goods through two ways: one is the rural public goods borne by the central government, whose decision-making and implementation are completed by the relevant departments from top to bottom. It mainly includes investment in infrastructure construction and its renovation, investment in scientific research, education and other agricultural production services, various subsidies to farmers, and investment in the development of rural social undertakings. Second, in order to enhance the ability of counties and townships to supply rural public goods, the transfer payment is made by the central government, provinces and cities to counties and townships, and its decision-making and implementation are completed by counties and townships and rural communities. In recent years, the central government has increased the investment in rural public goods, which not only has a large increase in the total amount of financial funds for supporting agriculture, but also has a wide coverage, which provides an important support for solving the plight of the supply of rural public goods. The supply of public goods has made great progress.

(2) Supplementary supply on the basis of rural community organizations

While increasing financial investment, the central government also carries out supplementary supply of public goods through system design in rural communities. the main forms are the "one-case-discussion" system for the funds and services needed for road construction, collective production and public welfare undertakings in the village, and the "Farmers' Water user Association" for the management of small-scale water conservancy and irrigation facilities in the village.

1. A democratic fund-raising system-- "one thing, one discussion". As an important supporting policy carried out in parallel with the rural tax and fee reform, the direct purpose of the "one matter, one discussion" system is to decide matters related to the village public utilities through the villagers' meeting or the villagers' representative meeting, so as to replace the original provident fund and "two jobs" used for rural public welfare construction. As the basic system of financing for rural public goods, the goal of the "one matter, one discussion" system is relatively clear, which effectively controls the problem of "arbitrary collection of fees" before the tax and fee reform. However, due to the "lack" of supporting measures, the system has appeared the situation of "difficult to discuss, difficult to decide, and absolutely difficult to implement" from the beginning of the pilot project, which failed to fundamentally change the supply of public goods in the village. In order to make up for the deficiency of the system arrangement of "one matter, one discussion", the financial reward and subsidy system of "one matter, one discussion" came into being and achieved good results. First, it has solved some public demand problems that are difficult to solve through collective action in the village, effectively overcome the problem of "hitchhiking", improve the production and living environment of farmers, and make up for the gap in the supply of public goods to rural communities by state finance. it has promoted the development of new rural construction. Second, it has constructed a new mechanism for the supply and financing of village-level public goods, and initially formed a new mechanism for the diversified supply of public goods, which is "financial fund guidance, farmers' financing and labor investment, and social donation and sponsorship", which fully mobilizes the enthusiasm of all parties to invest in public goods. The third is to explore the democratic deliberative mechanism of the combination of "top-down" and "bottom-up". The whole process is independently participated by farmers, which organically combines the needs of farmers with the decision-making preferences of the government. effectively meet the real needs of the peasant masses.

two。 Non-administrative organizational system-"Farmers' Water user Association". After the implementation of the household contract system, whether within the village or cross-regional irrigation and water conservancy infrastructure, because of its public goods attribute, led to obvious "free rider" behavior, as the main body of responsibility of the government and villagers, in the process of "game", both are in a state of "absence", which seriously affects the development of agricultural production and rural economy. After the reform of taxes and fees in rural areas, the model of "Farmers' Water user Association" began to be popularized in an all-round way. The existence of a large number of social and non-administrative "peasant water user associations" all over the country is a powerful supplement to the supply of rural public goods system. It is the innovation of the organizational system of the state to supply rural public goods outside rural organizations. Because the Farmers' Water user Association follows the establishment principle of "who benefits, who pays; who invests, who owns", its ownership is clear and can well solve the problem of "hitchhiking" in the supply of rural public goods. At the same time, as a rural community organization, the Peasant Water user Association is a voluntary cooperation among farmers, which is different from the administration of rural organizations because of its social and non-administrative nature. it can meet the needs of farmers in the state of transparent information, achieve the "Pareto optimal" of supply, and achieve the best equilibrium of the supply of public goods.

II. Problems in the supply of public goods in rural communities

(1) the total amount of financial transfer investment is insufficient and the structure is out of balance

1. The total investment in rural public goods is insufficient. Although the absolute amount of national financial support for agriculture has increased by a large margin, compared with the total national financial expenditure, in fact, the average annual growth rate of financial support for agriculture is much lower than that of total fiscal expenditure, which makes the supply of public goods in a state of shortage and inefficiency. Limited by the non-exclusive and non-competitive characteristics of public goods, rural productive public goods and developmental public goods reflect the nature of pure public goods and can only be invested by the state. However, due to the limitation of central finance, it is impossible to meet all public needs, and the financial revenue of local county and township governments invest very little in rural public goods. As a result, there are still problems of shortage of productive public goods in many rural areas, such as water shortage irrigation, inadequate development and promotion of agricultural technology, non-standard market supply and demand information, and so on. There are also deficiencies in the supply of living and developmental public goods such as educational services, medical and health care, social security and so on. This does not match the status of agriculture in the development of the national economy, and it also shows that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the state's attention to the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers.

two。 The input structure of rural public goods is out of balance. Although the scale of national financial support for agriculture is growing rapidly, the expenditure structure is out of balance. It is embodied in the following points: first, there is a lack of investment in public goods which is closely related to the basic living needs of farmers. In terms of public infrastructure, although the state has increased investment in rural infrastructure and implemented village-to-village access projects such as water, electricity and roads, there are still many problems in coverage, project quality, management and protection in the later stage. In terms of cultural and sports life, although some places have cultural and entertainment facilities and places such as "farm bookstore" and "cultural courtyard", the problems such as lack of resources and gambling are more prominent, and sports and fitness venues are relatively scarce; in terms of public security, the defects of the rural security mechanism strongly call for the intervention of the government; in terms of environmental protection, environmental pollution and ecological destruction in rural areas are also urgent problems to be solved. The second is the lack of supply of public goods for sustainable development of farmers themselves. In recent years, the state finance has increased the investment in rural education, but there is an obvious gap between the software and hardware facilities of rural schools and urban schools, whether it is teachers or teaching facilities. even sports equipment such as basketball and football are difficult to be linked with modernization, not to mention teaching level and teaching quality. As for rural medical and health services, the new rural cooperative medical system alleviates the health risks of farmers, and the finance also invests a lot in hardware facilities, but the level of medical services is generally low, which can not meet the health needs of farmers. There is a lack of health care and medical institutions in villages and township communities, and the difficulty of seeing a doctor still haunts most farmers. In the aspect of social security, there are some problems, such as small coverage of security items, low level of security, imperfect security system and so on.

(2) there are some defects in the financial reward and subsidy policy of "one matter, one discussion".

The implementation of the financial reward and subsidy policy of "one matter, one discussion" has achieved certain results, but due to the short time of promotion and great differences among different regions, some problems have been exposed in practice. First, the policy propaganda is not in place. Not only the peasant masses do not understand the policy, but also rural cadres and even county leaders have little knowledge of the policy. Second, it is difficult to convene meetings. Due to the indifference of public consciousness, farmers are seriously affected by "small peasant consciousness" when solving public problems, they are unwilling to participate in villagers' meetings or villagers' congresses, lack the necessary enthusiasm and enthusiasm, and do not respond much when discussing public problems in the village. it is difficult to form a resolution. Third, it is difficult to raise funds for labor. It is difficult to hold a villagers' meeting, and it is even more difficult to implement the labor and financing policy decided at the villagers' meeting. Coupled with the low standards of existing financing and financial incentive policies, it is also difficult to solve practical problems. Fourth, the operation procedure is not perfect. Due to the lack of strict and clear normative procedures and necessary institutional constraints, there are some problems in the specific operation, from the scope of project implementation to the control and management of project funds.

III. The reasons for the problems of public goods in rural communities

(1) the reasons for the problems in financial transfer investment

1. The "habit" of the system of urban-rural dual supply of public goods. At the beginning of the reform of the rural tax and fee system in the new century, while reducing the burden on farmers, the government also tries to make up for the "vacuum" in the supply of rural public goods caused by the tax and fee reform. However, in practice, the urban-rural dual supply system of public goods has not changed substantially. From the proportion of financial support to agriculture in the whole financial expenditure, we can see that the absolute number of financial support for agriculture has increased obviously, but there is no "deep love" for rural areas in the whole financial expenditure. it has not really reflected the "strategic welfare" of "industry feeding agriculture and cities supporting rural areas".

two。 The government's "top-down" mandatory supply. The government's "top-down" decision-making model not only reflects the "path dependence" of the rural public goods supply system, but also reflects a supply preference that governments at all levels are used to carrying out work through plans and administrative orders. The reason lies in the imperfect democratic election mechanism and democratic decision-making expression mechanism. At the same time, because the government is almost the only supplier, farmers do not have more room for choice, let alone take the initiative to choose public goods that can meet their preferences by the way of "sufficient voting". For grass-roots government officials, they pursue "political achievements" and "interests". In their work, they are willing to issue instructions in the form of policies and even mandatory instructions. Such a system of appointment and removal of officials, market selection mechanism and the logic of political behavior make the supply and demand of rural public goods misplaced, some of the public goods needed by farmers can not be well met, or some public goods are oversupplied and resources are wasted. the result is an imbalance between supply and demand.

3. The supply function of public goods in rural community organizations is "weakened". Although the household contract system promotes the rapid growth of agricultural economy through an effective incentive mechanism, it lacks effective incentives for the supply of public goods. With the disintegration of collective economy, which is the platform of out-of-system supply, the ability and efficiency of village collective supply of public goods have fallen to a low ebb. At the same time, village-level organizations also encounter difficulties in functional positioning, the village committee has long assumed the dual functions of government affairs and village affairs, and can not give full play to its role as a village-level public goods organizer, thus affecting the efficiency of the supply of public goods in rural communities.

4. The supervision system of the supply of public goods is "weak" and "missing". There are double problems of excessive supervision and insufficient supervision in the supply of rural public goods. Excessive supervision is mainly reflected in the harsh conditions and tedious procedures for the government to examine and approve the entry of market subjects or various social forces into the field of rural public goods, which limits the entry of private subjects and private service subjects into the field of rural public goods. On the one hand, lack of supervision means that government departments lack supervision and management of the use of public resources, resulting in public resources or excessive expenditure on head expenses, or on matters that have nothing to do with farmers. On the other hand, it means that due to the lack of corresponding farmers' participation mechanism, farmers can not effectively supervise the government's supply decision-making behavior, resulting in the unsatisfactory supply of rural public goods and the waste of public resources.

(2) the causes of the problems in the system of "one matter, one discussion"

1. The restriction of the "dilemma" of farmers' cooperation. The indifferent public consciousness makes it difficult for farmers to reach collective action in "one matter, one discussion", which is not only related to the value judgment of individual farmers, but also to the internal structure of the village. The village with a strong sense of family identity is easy to form the pressure of public opinion within the family and encourage cooperation. The villagers will regard the public utilities in the village as their own family business, easy to reach cooperation, and easy to implement "one thing, one discussion". However, in the villages where the blood relationship is too sparse, each individual only pays attention to the interests of his own small family, "hitchhiking" becomes a rational choice, individual rationality leads to collective irrationality, and cooperation is in a dilemma. If there is a lack of restraint and encouragement from village organizations or village "elites", individual families can not control each other, which will make the practical operation of "one thing and one discussion" more difficult and difficult to achieve effective cooperation.

two。 The unreasonable influence of the division of government supply responsibility. As the power of the local government in the supply of regional public goods is far greater than the financial power after the tax-sharing system, although there are certain financial transfer payments given by the central and provincial finance, and through the "one matter, one discussion" system to provide rural roads, tap water and other public works, but the local supporting funds needed by the special allocation is a considerable gap. In this way, there is often a lack of coordination among governments at all levels in the implementation of the financial reward and subsidy policy of "one matter, one discussion", sometimes there is no effective coordination and cooperation between national finance and local finance, and sometimes the relevant departments cannot effectively supervise the implementation of the project. after the completion of the project, the specific departments did not carry out post-maintenance.

3. The "powerlessness" and "absence" of regulators. It is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, the regulatory authorities do not act in accordance with the rules and regulations, which is relatively loose, lack of guidance and correction for non-procedural procedures, turn a blind eye to non-standard financing, and do not stop and regulate it. Second, there is a lack of supervision and inspection on the implementation of the project, and the supervision duties are not effectively performed. The existing problems often pass the buck to each other and do not solve them in essence.

IV. countermeasures and suggestions on improving the supply of public goods in rural communities

During the period of new rural construction, the supply of public goods in rural communities has been greatly improved. however, the government-led "top-down" financial transfer payment system and the "bottom-up"self-help" supply system of rural community participation have not reached the state of organic coordination, and there is room and necessity for further innovation. It is necessary to innovate at different levels, such as decision-making mechanism, financing mechanism, supervision mechanism and so on.

(1) to establish a decision-making mechanism that organically combines "top-down" and "bottom-up"

For those pure public goods in rural communities that cannot rule out "hitchhiking" behavior, their own characteristics require that the administrative coercive power and resource adjustment power of the government should be brought into full play, and the "top-down" supply decision-making system should be adhered to. Try our best to let the fruits of economic development benefit rural communities so as to achieve a balance between urban and rural areas in the supply of public goods. As for those rural community quasi-public goods that can be effectively excluded through technological settings, the government should take advantage of the situation, fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the majority of rural community residents, and respect the expression of farmers' public demand will. The "bottom-up" principle of decision satisfaction is used to guide farmers to express their real demand preferences. Therefore, the government should give full play to the leading role of institutional innovation and do something and not do something in the process of institutional innovation. Through the design of incentive mechanisms, such as cultivating the willingness of rural community residents to express their needs, improving the degree of organization of farmers' demand expression for public goods, and improving the work consciousness and governance style of township governments, let rural community residents truly express the will of public demand, make decisions adapt to public opinion, and achieve effective docking of demand expression, demand transmission and demand reception.

(2) to establish a fund-raising mechanism with an organic combination of "government-led" and "multi-party participation"

We should make clear the scope and boundary of public goods provided by the government and multiple subjects, solve the problem of the allocation of decision-making power in which the supply decision of public goods is consistent with the demand decision, and clarify the property right boundary to protect the investment enthusiasm of investors. and solve the problem of "hitchhiking". The key to the fund-raising mechanism of "government-led and pluralistic participation" is to form a supply financing mobilization model of "national mobilization and social mobilization as a supplement", which organically integrates government input and non-governmental investment, and realizes the diversified financing of the supply of public goods in rural communities. According to the different nature of public goods and different supply subjects, under the guidance of national mobilization, realize the organic combination of national mobilization mechanism and social mobilization mechanism.

(3) to establish a supervision mechanism with government supervision as the leading role, farmers' autonomy as the core and multi-party participation as the guarantee.

In order to improve the overall supply efficiency, we should introduce a pluralistic competition mechanism to attract farmers and grass-roots organizations to participate in the management of public goods while giving full play to the role of the government. to achieve the regulatory system innovation of "government supervision as the leading, farmers' autonomy as the core, and multi-party participation as the guarantee". At the same time, we should take the establishment of a flexible and flexible independent supervision mechanism as the key to the implementation of institutional innovation, guide farmers' public consciousness and construct legal and social environments such as independent governance rules. let the autonomous forces within the countryside fully play a fundamental role in the field of public affairs, and let the broad masses of farmers participate in the supervision and management of public goods in rural communities. Realize the coordination, cooperation and development of government public departments, farmers' beneficiaries and multiple social subjects, improve the supervision efficiency of public goods, and form the organic coordination and positive interaction between the government and multiple supply subjects.