Author(s)

Qianyi Liu, Yuxuan Liu, Qinxia Wang, Ruihao Li

Corresponding Author

Ruihao Li

Abstract

The improvement in efficiency and fairness of public resource allocation is a key measure to promote social equality and justice. Based on the panel data of 110 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2007 to 2017, this study measures and analyzes the Spatio-temporal evolution, regional gap, allocation efficiency, etc. of the public resource allocation in the YREB using spatial visualization, Dagum's Gini decomposition, and super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model. The following results were obtained: a) the overall public resource possession in theYREB showed a fluctuating upward trend, with an increase in average index close to 44%, from 0.3102 to 0.4467. b) the Dagum's Gini coefficient of public resource allocation presented an inverted “V”-shaped evolution trend, and the overall regional gap is mainly attributed to inter-regional discrepancies, of which the differences between the east and the central and between the central and the west contribute the most; c) the overall allocation of public resources in the region displayed a propensity for high-efficiency development, with the average overall configuration efficiency rising from 0.2688 to 0.7824. d) results of the coupling analysis of fairness and efficiency demonstrated a preoccupation for Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Chongqing province to increase the input of public resources and for Zhejiang and Shanghai to enhance the social and economic output corresponding to public resources to further upgrade the efficiency of allocation; moreover, the fairness-efficiency coupling of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Yunnan was extremely poor, which confirmed a structural deviation between the public resource input in the region and the local economic development.

Keywords

Public resource allocation, Fairness and efficiency, The yangtze river economic belt, Spatio-temporal evolution