Effect Evaluation of Comprehensive Reform Policies of Service Sectors: Enlightenment of System and Mechanism Innovation for High Quality Development

Liu Sheng, Xu Rongxin, Chen Xiuying

Journal of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Vol. 23, Issue 03, pp. 79 - 94 (2021)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.jsufe.2021.03.006

Summary

Nowadays the high-quality development of China’s service sectors is still plagued by the lag of the system and mechanism. It is urgent to speed up the optimization of the policy system and development environment, and stimulate the new vitality of service sectors. Therefore, based on the new economic geography theory, this paper solves the problem of selectivity bias and endogeneity through the PSM-DID method to investigate the impact of the pilot policy of comprehensive reform on the agglomeration development of service sectors. We find that the comprehensive reform of service sectors is conducive to promoting the agglomeration development of service sectors in pilot areas. This conclusion is valid after using robustness tests such as changing the observation period and randomly selecting the experimental group. The policy effect shows regional and industrial heterogeneity. The policy effect is more significant in the samples of eastern regions and knowledge-intensive service sectors, but it is not obvious in the samples of northeastern regions and the life service sectors. Furthermore, the mediation model results show that the policy effect is achieved by strengthening regional innovation ability and improving labor productivity. During the “14th Five Year Plan” period, it is fundamental to promote the pilot comprehensive reform of service sectors by relaxing market access, clearing up unreasonable restrictions, and building an efficient collaborative regulatory system. Furthermore, to integrate the reform policies of different departments, optimize the technological innovation environment to adapt to new business models, and improve the talent cultivation and incentive system of service sectors is essential. In general, the integration of various measures is needed to comprehensively promote the prosperity and high-quality development of China’s service sectors.

Keywords

pilot comprehensive reform of service sectors; agglomeration development of service sectors; quasi-natural experiment; the PSM-DID method