An Impact Evaluation of the first phase of National Basic Ability Construction Project of HEIs in Western and Central China

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday VI)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Educational technology, responsible educator, and learning engagement

Proposal

The stratification in higher education has long been a pivotal topic in economics of education. From the perspective of education finance, researchers have exploited quantitative regression method to analyze the uneven allocation of resources in higher education institutions (HEIs) in China, and found that the expenditure per student of HEIs under central ministries and agencies is significantly higher than that of their counterparts under provincial authorities, and the eastern regions gain more advantages than the central and western regions. In order to reduce the disparities and improve the infrastructure of regular HEIs under local authorities in the central and western regions, the National Basic Ability Construction Project of HEIs in Western and Central China (the Project) was introduced in 2012. This exogenous shock provides us with the chance to assess the effectiveness of the Project. Our paper improves the past literature in three important ways. First, most of the analysis concentrated at the province level or above, while our data allows for a direct estimation at the school level. Second, our work deals with the endogeneity by exploiting quasi-experimental design, and thus can draw causal inference on the effects. Third, apart from the assessment of the university's basic ability, we also examine whether the rise in infrastructure spending caused by the Project crowds out other spending.

The National Basic Ability Construction Project of HEIs in Western and Central China was launched in 2012. In the first phase (2012-2015), the project focused on supporting 100 regular HEIs administered by provincial authorities with relatively advanced status in the central and western regions, and then started the second phase of the five-year project in 2016. To improve the conditions for infrastructures and consolidate the foundation of the colleges, the provincial governments in the central and western regions were asked to share the costs at a ratio not lower than the central and local ratios of 6:4 and 8:2 respectively (except for the Tibet Autonomous Region). This multi-stage implementation process of the Project provides opportunities for us to conduct quasi-experimental research. Based on the school-level panel data from 2007 to 2016, we use comparative interrupted time series models, treating the central and western regular HEIs that entered Phase I and Phase II of the Project as treated and control groups respectively, to examine the effects of the Project from the aspects of the basic ability and the “crowding out effect”.

It is found that the implementation of the Project has achieved remarkable results. In terms of the basic ability, the Project has significantly improved the basic infrastructure spending of regular HEIs which administered by provincial authorities in the central and western regions, with an average annual increase of 137.6%. At the same time, we do not find that the Project produced a significant “crowding out effect” on the business expenditure of HEIs.

Authors

• Wenqi Qiu, Peking University

• Wei Ha, Peking University