中国的政策试验：政策学习的政治经济学

中文摘要

政府利用政策试验促进学习，但这些试验的性质与效果仍不明确。我们分析了中国自1980年以来开展的政策试验——这是历史上最系统的政策试验之一——并记录了三个事实。第一，大多数试验呈现正向样本选择。第二，地方政治官员在试验期间投入了过多努力，而这些努力在政策向全国推广时无法复制。第三，中央政府在解读试验结果时并非完全老练。这些事实表明，政策学习可能存在偏误，国家政策也可能因此发生扭曲。因此，尽管中国的制度使其能够以前所未有的规模开展试验，但复杂的政治环境也会限制有效的政策学习。

Abstract

Governments use policy experiments to facilitate learning, but the nature and effects of these experiments remain unclear. We analyze China's policy experimentation since 1980—among the most systematic in history—and document three facts. First, most experiments exhibit positive sample selection. Second, local politicians exert excessive efforts during experiments that are not replicable during policies’ national rollout. Third, the central government is not fully sophisticated when interpreting experimentation outcomes. These facts suggest that policy learning may be biased and national policies may be distorted. Thus, while China’s institutions enable experimentation at an unparalleled scale, the complex political environments can also limit effective policy learning.