The "China's economic miracle" under the leadership of the Communist Party of China has always been an important topic of academic research at home and abroad, and it is the centralized embodiment and significant practical innovation of the modernization of the economic governance capacity of the Communist Party of China. Many studies have explored the causes of "China's economic miracle" from the aspects of political system, economic system, fiscal and tax system or cultural factors. The Communist Party of China has formed an efficient leadership system and governance model through continuous exploration in long-term practice.To understand the great achievements of contemporary China's economic development, it is necessary to deeply investigate the unique governance system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. In view of this, under the framework of longitudinal governance between central and local governments, this paper summarizes the economic governance model with "target responsibility system" as the main feature, aiming to provide a new perspective for understanding "China's economic miracle".
First of all, this paper summarizes the concept and structural characteristics of "target responsibility system". "Target responsibility system" is a system which takes party and government branch organization as operation carrier and upholds the principle of equality of power and responsibility and benefit, the central government acts as the originator of the "downward decomposition" of economic and social goals, then local governments and social institutions at all levels decompose and implement the goals as the "upward responsible" contractors under administrative constraints, political or economic incentives, finally coordinate and unified to complete the targets of the system. In the system of "target responsibility", the relationship between the central government and the local government is "contract-contracting", which includes not only the top-down "constraint" effect, but also the bottom-up "incentive" feature. From the point of view of structure characteristics, the responsibility system of objectives can be divided into three main steps: setting objectives, decomposing objectives and assessing objectives. The steps of goal making, goal decomposition and goal assessment are not only gradient and gradual, but also interactive, thus forming a coordinated and unified closed loop system.
Secondly, from the perspectives of democratic centralism, Chinese-style decentralization, vertical governance system and socialist market economy, this paper analyzes the institutional basis of the effective operation of "target responsibility system" under Chinese model. First, the political foundation of democratic centralism determines the binding nature of target responsibility system. Democratic centralism ensures that the overall objectives of the central government are extended locally in a highly organized form wbhich has significant vertical constraints on local government. Second, "top-down" vertical governance ensures the cohesion of the target accountability system. Top-down performance appraisal motivates local governments to take on the central government's targets. Third, the fiscal incentive under economic decentralization strengthens the effectiveness of target responsibility system. The tax-sharing reform fully aroused the enthusiasm of local government to carry out local economic construction. Fourth, the socialist market economy system with Chinese characteristics has stimulated the creativity of target responsibility system. China's market economy system in which public ownership plays a dominant role and various forms of ownership develop side by side not only ensures that the goals set by the central and local governments can effectively play a leading role, but also gives full play to the initiative of various market entities.
Finally, this paper further analyzes the main mechanism of local government promoting economic growth through "self-motivation effect" and "yardstick competition effect" in the "top-down" target-responsibility management system. Under the vertical constraint led by the central government's target, the economic growth target is closely related to the assessment and promotion of officials. This pressure assessment system increases the government departments' pursuit of economic growth target and strengthens the "self-motivation" of local officials. In addition, competition among local governments is an important source of China's economic growth miracle. Local officials will spare no effort in economic construction and pursue higher economic growth rates in order to win the promotion tournament. Therefore, the pattern of regional horizontal competition formed under the target responsibility system not only ensures the effectiveness of the "downward decomposition" of the target, but also ensures the completion of the economic growth target.
This study provides a new idea for deepening the institutional reform of the governance relationship between central and local governments, and provides policy inspiration for the high-quality development of China's economy in the next step. First, scientific design of economic development objectives, give full play to the leading function of "target responsibility system". While the GDP-focused competition model of local officials has significantly boosted economic growth in past stages of development, it has also led to adverse effects such as overcapacity and redundant construction. Therefore, the central government should not only give full play to the overall function and leading role of "target responsibility system" when setting economic development goals, but also avoid the phenomenon of excessive overloading under the vertical management system. Second, we will promote the reform of the local government evaluation system and improve the evaluation index system. Regional performance will no longer be measured solely by GDP. Environmental protection, people's livelihood, culture and security will be taken into more comprehensive consideration, so that performance evaluation will not be based on total quantity, speed and scale, but on the quality, mode and sustainability of development. Third, we need to standardize the relationship between government revenue and expenditure at different levels and improve the governance mechanism between central and local governments. Since the tax-sharing reform, the divergence of financial resources and authority between central and local governments has intensified the function dislocation and behavior distortion of local governments. Therefore, it is necessary to speed up the construction of local tax system and enrich the revenue source of local government, and transfer part of expenditure responsibility appropriately. On this basis, the local government's intervention in market economic activities should be furtherly restricted, so as to reverse the distortion of local government's behavior under the central government-led incentive mode.