Based on the county panel data of Jiangsu Province from 2006 to 2020,this paper uses the multi-DID model to explore the impact of the city-county merger reform on the supply level of public services of county government.The re-sults show that the reform of city-county merger can improve the supply level of economic public services such as transporta-tion infrastructure while has a negative impact on livelihood pub-lic services such as education and healthcare.Regression analy-sis of sub-samples reveals regional differences in the policy effects of the reform.Overall,the problem of"prioritizing the e-conomy over people's livelihoods"still exists,but it is more ob-vious in areas with low and medium level of economic develop-ment.Mechanism analysis finds that the reform has driven the development of county-level economy and promoted population growth in low and medium level areas.However,the growth of public service supply is not as fast as population growth,leading to a"crowding effect".Therefore,whether to implement the re-form needs to be tailored to local conditions.In regions that re-forms have been implemented,government functions should be transformed,resource allocation should be optimized,and the level of public service supply should be promoted by building a service-oriented government to ensure the simultaneous devel-opment of economy and people's livelihood.
city-county merger reformsupply level of public servicescounty developmentDID Method
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
