An Analysis of Public Service Structural Imbalances in Rural China

Rectifying the structural imbalance between the provision of and demand for rural public services can effectively boost the efficiency of public funds utilization and the level of public service provision. Based on the findings of a field survey, this article presents a summary of the structural imbalance between the provision of and demand for rural public services. This paper holds that the structural imbalance is primarily reflected in the dislocation between provision and demand, the unsuitable mode of provision, the monolithic provision mechanism, the excessive focus on construction at the expense of governance and the overemphasis of counties and townships at the cost of villages. Such structural imbalance is principally because of the limited financial strength of government at the grass-roots level due to treasury centralization and the over-dependence of public services on special funds allocated by government at or above provincial level.