【作者】 杨虎涛；

【导师】 王冰；

【作者基本信息】 武汉大学 ， 政治经济学， 2004， 博士

【摘要】 作为人类社会互动的主要形式,竞争一直在经济学的研究中占据着非常重要的地位。资源稀缺与欲望无限的矛盾决定了个人与组织之间的竞争关系,有着各自利益追求的个体或组织为争夺那些能改进自身利益的物品,相互之间必然展开争夺。自亚当·斯密始,经由杰文斯、马歇尔,至萨缪尔森等,无论经济学家将经济学界定为研究资源配置的科学,还是认为研究人的选择是经济学的使命,经济学所研究的一些核心问题,如资源配置效率、个人与集体福利的变化等,都离不开对竞争的分析。竞争调节供求、价格和要素之间的有机联系,在市场正常有序的运动中发挥了及其重要的协调作用,从而对资源配置效率和社会福利水平起着决定性的作用。没有竞争机制,市场和整个社会经济的运行都难以正常有序地进行。虽然竞争是所有经济学流派都无法回避的研究对象,但不容否认的是,在过去很长一段时间里,经济学家们对竞争的关注往往是和那些显性的经济主体和经济资源紧密相关的,对竞争主体的研究更多地是停留在企业层次上。企业竞争,价格变化,资源重新配置,消费者和厂商福利增减等成为竞争研究的主要内容。相比之下,经济学对市场经济中另一重要主体——政府之间的竞争研究则相对淡漠得多,我们很难在现有的经济学理论中找出像企业竞争理论那样完整的政府间竞争理论,即使涉及政府间竞争问题,也往往是直接套用企业竞争那一套业已成型的理论和假设,很少考虑政府间竞争与企业间竞争的差异性。这样的厚此薄彼不能不说是理论研究的一个遗憾,因为在真实的经济世界中,根本不可能存在“纯粹”的经济组织竞争。所有经济组织之间的竞争,无一例外地,都是与政治组织之间的竞争交织在一起的。经济主体的竞争活动总是不可避免地受到政府间竞争的内容、方式和后果的影响。政治家争夺企业家,企业家争夺市场和货币;政治家提供平台,企业家选择和更换平台,构成了整个社会经济的竞争格局。因而,简略地,我们可以将市场经济中的竞争区分为两个层次,即政府之间的竞争和经济主体之间的竞争。两个层次的竞争你中有我,我中有你,互相制约,互相促进。政治—经济的过程就是在这两层交融的竞争中得以进行的。如果说正利润是企业存在和发展的根本,在稀缺条件下为了追求更多的正利润,企业之间就会展开竞争,那么在政府之间的竞争动力也与之类似。无论国家层次的政府还是一国内部的地方政府,正的合法性对政府的意义如同正的利润对企业的意义一样,都是它们存在和发展的根本。合法性失去了,政府也就不复存在。合法性来自政府对政府-公众契约的履行绩效,它同样需要各种资源和各类公共产品支持,在资源稀缺的世界中,合法性同样也是稀缺的。在稀缺前提下,为追求正的合法性的政府之间也就和追求正利润的企业之间一样,必然展开竞争。尽管都是有各自利益追求的组织间竞争行为,但政府间竞争与企业间的竞争还是有很大的差别,而其中最突出的不同在于:企业间竞争的结果是以技术和管理创新为手段,以产品技术含量、服务质量变化以及消费价格的变化为结果;而政府间竞争则是以制度创新为手段,以制度变迁为结果。这是因为,提供管理性公共物品——制度本身就是政府的职能,甚至是最为基础的职能,制度及其绩效决定了企业和居民的盈利空间,进而影响到政府的合法性水平,在政府间的竞争中,制度就是决定绩效和政府竞争成败和自己生存发展的关键所在。企业要在竞争中取胜,就要不断进行技术和管理的创新,降低成本,占据更大的市场份额,政府要在竞争中取胜,就要不断进行制度创新,通过制度创新赢得企业和选民的支持,在促进经济社会发展的同时获得自身合法性的维持和增长。按照制度经济学家的理解,产权制度的确立,甚至资本主义的法律和政治制度的形成和发展,都应当归结于开放条件下的政府竞争。没有政府之间的竞争,资本主义将依然在黑暗的封建时代摸索,正是开放条件下的竞争迫使统治者想要保持和吸引财富的创造者,并逐渐演化出了对私人产权的保护和对私人权利的尊重、对政府垄断的和私人垄断的抑止、法治以及民主的、受限制的政府。一言以蔽之,政府之间的竞争和制度变迁之间存在着紧密的联系,制度的变迁既是政府竞争的手段,也是政府竞争的结果。制度变迁的过程从一个侧面反映出政府在竞争压力下的应对措施,而制度变迁的绩效则直接决定了政府在竞争中的优胜劣汰。然而,在政府之间的竞争力量推动下,制度变迁是如何展开的呢?决定这一过程的核心因素又是什么?本文的结论是:竞争中的学习及其导致的知识存量与结构变化是政府改变规则的根源。这一结论来自如下的分析逻辑:首先,制度本身是一种知识。无论是仅有七条规定的汉谟拉比法典,还是现代国家浩若烟海的各类法律法规,所有的制度,就其本质而言,均是人类在长期交往过程中演化出的关于协调的一种共同知识。借助于这种共同认识,无数分散的个体和组织才可能有机地协调组合在一起。其次,无论是发现新的协调知识,还是将分散的协调知识最终型构为社会共同认识的制度,竞争在其中都起着决定性的作用。在知识的发现和分散知识的聚合过程中,竞争就是一个聚焦的凸面镜,通过竞争中的试错、比较和模仿,分散的知识中那些能获得更多人支持和认可的共同知识最终得以幸存下来成为协调人们交往的规则,这一规律不仅体现在由个人互动形成习俗的过程中,也体现在政府竞争的过程中。再次,学习始终是理解制度变迁的关键。所有组织和个体之间竞争引致的制度变迁,都离不开组织在竞争中的学习这一核心问题,政府之间的竞争过程就是一个政府学习与发现的过程,任何制度,无论促进政府的竞争力还是削弱政府的竞争力,都是政府学习的结果。模仿、淘汰、适应性学习、内省充斥在政府探询、实施和校正制度的过程中,由学习导致的理念和设计性知识的变化,改变了政府和其辖区成员的博弈理念、博弈规则和最终的博弈均衡。最后,既然竞争中的学习是影响制度变迁的关键,政府在竞争中的学习能力、学习内容和学习绩效就决定了一个政府在竞争中的地位。善于学习的政治家、学习型的政府、具有公信力的政府以及有效的学习手段是衡量竞争中政府优劣成败的关键。这里暗含的现实意义是,无论竞争发生在国家层面还是地方政府之间,也无论政府间的竞争在那一个领域发生、以何种形式展开,最终起决定性作用的是它们的学习能力。正如哈耶克认识到的那样,人类社会的多样性无与伦比,差异性和多样性往往是导致人类取得独特成就的原因。在政府竞争引致的制度变迁中,这一点也同样得到了体现。虽然竞争中的模仿和示范效应是如此普及,但不同国家和地区的政府并未因此而拓展出相似的制度,无论在形式还是效率上,不同国家的宏观经济体制和微观经济制度都表现出来各自的特征和差异性。学习是复杂的,其最突出之处就是过去学习到的知识会影响学习主体对知识的选择、汲取和理解,当政府在获取知识、改变知识并最终固化知识在社会中时,既是竞争手段又是竞争结果的制度变迁在政府竞争的过程中所表现出的差异性仍然与学习的复杂性问题密切相关。作为竞争手段,虽然政府之间存在相互学习模仿,但制度依然保持了多层次和多维度的差异性;作为竞争结果,虽然所有制度都受到竞争机制优胜劣汰准则的制约,但并未完全使那些看似无效率和实际无效率的制度完全被筛选掉。从制度本身的演化特征看,不同国家和地区制度的演化出现多样性部分地与文化差异和历史特征相关,但从知识变动的角度看,在政府竞争过程中,模仿未能导致制度形式和效率的完全或基本一致以及政府通过竞争中的适应性学习产生的制度绩效和形式的差异结果皆可视为竞争中学习结果的差异性。知识在传递中的耗散、适应性学习对学习内容的选择性和学习主体的图式依赖使不同国家和地区的政府在竞争学习过程中不会出现一致性的学习结果。因而,作为竞争结果和竞争手段的制度差异性和多样性也就是必然的。和所有的事物一样,政府竞争对制度变迁的影响也有两面性。政府之间的竞争既可能引起好的制度变迁,产生促进经济增长,优化资源配置,提高公共效率等积极的结果;也可以引起坏的制度变迁,造成地方保护、恶性税收和规制竞争等负面后果。消极影响本质上属于政府竞争时采取的某些制度手段导致的负外部性,虽然政府在采取和实施这些制度时其目的都是为了竞争取胜,如:维持自身合法性、增加可支配财力、创造政绩等。但却导致了更多人、更大范围内的集体福利受损,只要政府在某种制度上进行创新时所带来的新增收益超过它对其他行为主体带来的负面影响,政府竞争对经济社会的影响就是消极的。只有在政府竞争既增加了社会整体福利,也增加了自身竞争实力的时候,政府竞争才是良性的、值得肯定和发展的。为了使竞争尽可能地产生好的结果,就需要竞争政府遵守一定的规则。这种规则或者不可能通过竞争政府自发形成,或者自发形成的代价太高,或者自发形成的自我实施程度不够,因而在化解政府竞争的负面效应上,一个外在的具有强制实施能力的机构及其施加于竞争政府间的协调机制就必不可少。总体上看,对于国家层次的政府竞争而言,协调机制和协调组织的形成是一种公共物品,其供给总是不可避免地低于社会最优供给数量,因此国际协调的困境就成为经济生活的常态。但对一个主权国家,中央政府应当也可以通过自身的权威地位和建立合理的法律体系将地区政府之间的竞争负效应减少到较低水平。更多还原

【Abstract】 As the interdynamic main form of human society, competition has been occupying very important position in the research of economics all the time. ,The contradiction between scarcity of resources and human limitless desires determined the competition relations between individual and organization. For pursuing their own interests,individual or organization often launches a fight each other. From Adam Smith and Marshall to Samulsons,no matter how the economists defined the economic as the science which studied resource distribution,or regarded that the study of people’s choice is the main point of economics, we can not overlook and must have to study the function of the competition regarding some key questions of economics, for instance, the efficiency of resource allocation, the change of individual and collective benefits, etc. The competition harmoniously regulates the connection between supply and demand, price and element, having been playing an important role of the coordination in the course of market running. Without competition mechanism, the operation of market and the whole social economy is difficult to be run in a normal order. Without analysis concerning the impact on market and the whole social economical operation of the competition, we can’t imagine that the mansion of economics can stand such a long time among the forest of social sciences.Although the competition is the research object that can’t be avoided by all economics schools, the economists only paid more attention to those obvious economic subjects and economic resource when they discussed any topic related to competition in the past time. Mostly, the study on competition subject just stayed on the level of enterprise. Enterprise’s competition, price change, resource reallocating and consumer’s benefit change etc. were the main concern in competition theory. By contrast, economics paid very little attention to another important subject in market economy--- government competition. It is very difficult to give the intact inter-governmental competing theories like enterprise’s competing theories in economics. Even economic affairs involved the inter-governmental competition, economics often mechanically applied the theory of enterprise competition without considering the difference between two of them. This can’t but be a regret of the theoretical research, because in the real economic world , the " pure competition of economic organization " can not exist. No doubt, All competitions among the economic organizations always interweave with the competition among the political organizations. In another words, the competition activities of the economic subject will be impacted by governments unavoidably. Politicians fight for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs contend for markets and currency, the politicians offer the platform, the entrepreneur chooses and changes the platform, all these form the competition pattern of the whole social economy. Simply, we can divide the competition in a market economy into two levels, namely the competition among governments and competition among economic subjects. These two kinds of competitions mix and interweave together, restricting and promoting each other, the political- economic course can be carried on in this context.If the profit is the base of enterprises’development, enterprises will compete each other in order to pursue more profits under the rare condition. The competition force among the governments is similar, too. No matter the government is the national level or the different local governments in one country,the legitimacy is the base of government,same as the profits to enterprises. Any government who loses legitimacy has to pass out of existence. Legitimacy comes from the performance when government fulfills the government- public agreement; it also needs various kinds of resources and all kinds of public products to support. In the world of rare resource, legitimacy is scarce, too. In order to pursue the positive legitimacy under the rare prerequisite, the governments have to complete just as the enterprises pursue profits. Although the two are competitions among organizations, the inter-governmental competition is quiet different from the enterprise competition. The remarkable difference is: the consequence of the competition among enterprises is the change of the technological content of the products, service quality and consumption price by technology and management innovation; while the consequence of the competition among the governments is the institution changes by innovation. The institution, as supplying public goods, is the most basic government’ s function. The institution and its performance have determined the profit space of the enterprises and residents, somehow, influence government’s legitimacy indirectly. In a word, the institution is a key point of determining the performance and government’s survival and development during the competition among the governments. To prevail over competition, enterprises should carry on the innovation of the technology and management constantly, trying to low costs but occupy greater market share. To prevail over competition, the governments should carry on institution innovation constantly, gaining the support of the enterprises and voters through institution innovation, by obtaining the maintaining and increasing of one’s own legitimacy while bringing about an advance in economic society. According to the new understandings of institution economists, the establishment of property relations, the construction and development of the law for the political system of the capitalism, should ascribe to the competition among governments under open conditions. Without competition among the governments, the capitalism would be still exploring in dark feudal era. Clearly, the competition under the exoteric condition forces rulers to have to keep and attract the creators of the wealth, eventually generate a government to protect the private right and respect the private property right, a government to restrict monopoly and individual monopolize, a government to be restricted by law and democracy. In a word, there are close connections between inter-governmental competition and institution changes. Institution changes are not only the approach of government competition but also the consequence of government competition. The process of institution changes reflects the government’s ability under the competitive pressure; meanwhile, the performances of institution changes determine the survival of the government directly.But how institution changes launch under the competitive pressure? What is the key factor of this course? The conclusion of this thesis is: the stock and structure’s change of knowledge from the competition study is the key to force the government to reform the institutions. This conclusion comes from the following logic analysis. First of all, institution is a kind of knowledge. As we have known, either Hammurabi code only with seven rules or the complicated system in modern society, any institution is a kind of common knowledge about the coordination that the mankind evolves out in the long-term course of associating with each other. With the aid of this kind of common knowledge, countless and disperse individuals and organizations can coordinate and run together organically. Secondly, the competition always plays a key role all through the new finding of coordination knowledge and the constructing the scattered final type of coordination knowledge to a system by the society. In the course of the discovery of knowledge and the getting together of scattered knowledge, the competition is like a convex mirror. By trying errors in the competition, comparing and imitating, those scattered knowledge that can get more people support and approved common knowledge can survive at last and become the coordinate rules that help people associate. These rules not only reflect in the custom’s formation, but also reflect in the course of government competition. Moreover, study is always the key to understand institution changes. Any institution change that is caused by competition among different organizations or different individuals must have to be associated with the study in the competition, the course of government competition is the course that governments study and discover new knowledge. Any institution, no matter it promotes the government’s competitiveness or weakens the government’s competitiveness; they all are the results of government’s study. Imitation , elimination from the adaptive study and introspection are packed in the course while the governments inquire after, implement and correct the institutions。From the change of knowledge about idea and rules, the government and people change their game idea, the game rule and form a new game equilibrium. Finally, since the study in the competition is the key to influence institution changes, learning ability, learning content and study performance of a government determine its position in the competition. A politician good at study, a government good at study, government with public trust and effective study means of the studying type are the key to weigh government’s success or failure in the competition. Here is an implicit meaning: no matter competition happens among countries or regions, no matter which kind of form launches in the competition field, the factor playing a decisive role is their learning abilities.Just as Hayek realizes, the variety of the human society is unparalleled. The difference and variety are the reasons why the mankind can make the unique achievement. Hayek’s view also reflects in the institution change caused by government competition. Although imitation of competition and demonstration effect are so popular, different governments of countries or regions do not produce the same or even similar institutions. On the contrary, in different countries, the macroscopical economic systems, as well as micro economic system, all show their own characteristics and differences--- either in the form or in the efficiency. Study is, the most complicated point is that the knowledge we studied in the past will influence our choice and understanding to the new knowledge. As a government obtaining knowledge, changing knowledge and formatting knowledge in the societies, the institution changes’difference showing the course of inter-governmental competition is often associated with the complexity of study. As a competition method,,institution still keeps multi-level and multidimensional difference, though governments imitate each other. As a competition result, all institutions should be selected by criterion of choosing the superior and eliminating the inferior. However, some of those institutions which seem inefficient and really inefficient have not been totally screened. From the view of institution evolution characteristic, the institutions of different countries and regions evolve diversified result to correlate with cultural difference and historical characteristic partly, but from the view of knowledge change, the governments can not make the system totally unanimous in the form and efficiency when they imitate each other in the course of government competition, the different result of the institutions can all be regarded as the difference of study result from the competition. Dissipation in transmitting of knowledge, adaptability to study, alternative of content and different mental structure,all these make different governments of countries and regions produce different institutions in the course of competition. Therefore, as the competition result and competitive method ,institution’s difference and variety is inevitable.The same as all the other things, the impact on institution changes of government competition has a dual characters, too. On one side of the competition among governments may cause good institution changes, producing and promoting economic growth, optimizing resource distribution, improving positive consequence such as public efficiency etc. On the other side of the competition among government may cause bad institution changes and, therefore, it may bring negative consequence such as regional protectionism, malignant tax war etc. Basically, negative influence is a kind of external-effect when a government adopts some means in competition. Though their purposes while government adopting and implementing these institutions are all for winning, for instance: maintaining one’s own legitimacy, increasing the financial resources, creating the achievements etc., it is balefulness to the collective welfare in more people and bigger range. As long as the newly-increased incomes brought by the innovating of the government on a certain system exceed the negative effect exceed the negative effect that it brings to others, the impact on economic society of government competition is exactly passive. Only when government’s competition has increased the whole social benefits, as well as has increased one’s own competition strength, government competition is benign, worth affirming and developing. In order to make the competition produce the good result as much as possible, governments should obey relevant discipline. Competitive governments through competition cannot establish the discipline, or the spontaneous cost is too high, or the validity of spontaneous self- implementation is not enough. In order to reduce the negative effect of government competition, an external organization and mechanism with implementing ability by force are very necessary. Therefore, according to the competition occurring among nations, the mechanism and organization for cooperation is a kind of public goods, its quantity is always lower than the optimum, so international predicament of coordination becomes normality of economic life. But to a nation, the central government can take advantage of its privileges and effective legal system to reduce the negative effects among the regional government competition.更多还原