Research on Public Investment in Chinese Agricultural Scientific Research

Author: Li Rong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-01
Features: This study primarily utilizes the tools of public choice theory and combines China's specific political-economic characteristics to analyze and demonstrate the public investment behavior of the Chinese government in agricultural research since the reform. The main conclusions of this study are:
1. The Chinese government's fiscal funding decision for agricultural research is a public choice process influenced by different interest groups.
2. The institutional background of the catch-up industrial development strategy has shaped four major interest groups in modern Chinese society: farmers, state-owned enterprises, urban residents, and government administrative institutions.
3. The distribution of welfare effects from agricultural research between producers and consumers mainly depends on the supply and demand price elasticities of agricultural products, with the demand price elasticity playing a decisive role.
4. The government holds a central position in the public choice process of China's agricultural policies.
5. In China's public choice process, policy competition among interest groups is carried out by aligning with government preferences and maximizing government utility through their occupational characteristics, production methods, industrial scale, and other means.
6. Due to the influence of the catch-up development strategy and institutional rigidity, farmers and agriculture are unable to achieve comparable advantages in policy positions in the public choice process compared to urban residents and state-owned enterprises. This further weakens their ability to alter the government's urbanization and industrialization policy preferences, which is the underlying reason for the insufficient fiscal funding for agricultural research by the government.
Policy Applications and Measures:
1. Vigorously promote the reform of the housing system for urban workers and the social medical, pension, and endowment insurance systems, gradually reducing urban residents' reliance and preference for universal welfare consumption and cultivating a positive and healthy awareness of commercialized social security.
2. Accelerate the restructuring and reorganization of state-owned enterprises, establish modern enterprise management systems, and improve the production efficiency and survival competitiveness of state-owned enterprises.
3. Actively promote the enhancement of farmers' organizational level, increasing channels and means for farmers to express their will in the public choice process.
4. Continue to strengthen support, guidance, and assistance for democratic political activities at the village level, such as village self-governance, village affairs openness, and village financial openness. Cultivate farmers' achievements, healthy democratic political concepts, and strong self-governance capabilities, laying an ideological foundation for farmers to participate in higher-level public choice processes.