Public Scenic Spots Market Power in Lifted-out-of-Poverty Districts,the Public Goods Paradox,and Systematic Regulation of Admission Fees by Category of Sights
The present study defines districts where their residents have been largely lifted-out-of-poverty as impoverished areas and regions identified by the former State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.As of November 2020,all of these districts have eradicated absolute poverty with occasional cases of returning to poverty.For future development of lifted-out-of-poverty districts,the report promulgated in the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China states that it is imperative to consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation and enhance the endogenous development momentum in such places.Public scenic spots here are set forth by the Tourism Law of the People's Republic of China and are short for sights or places of interest built with public resources.They are publicly owned,utilizing unique attractions created by nature or past human activities.Serving as the core attraction for the trip,the fees expensed for admission to public scenic spots constitute a key part of tourism expenditure.Moreover,admission fees can also reflect the complex multi-subject relationship behind the relevant policies and how these policies are implemented.From the regulatory perspective,the price regulation of the tourism industry stems from both the natural monopoly property of public landscape resources and the conflict of interests among different groups about the attributes of public products.As a result,regulators must take into account the trade-off between costs and benefits,as well as the practicality of the measures.Due to the limited financial resources in lifted-out-of-poverty districts,this trade-off is even more necessary.Such trade-offs are even more necessary in poverty-stricken areas where financial services are limited.Impoverished districts,especially ethnic minority areas,old revolutionary bases,border regions,and extremely hardship places,lack capital and talent and only have access to limited natural resources,and hence desire the most for boosting intrinsic growing power.However,it is difficult to change the cross-region differences in lifted-out-of-poverty districts in the short run.At the same time,public scenic spots have both public product and market power characteristics,which not only leads to the inherent conflict between efficiency and equity but also makes people confused about the role of the government—public goods provider or tourism sector regulator?An appropriate pricing rule for public scenic spots in poverty-stricken areas could help establish a mutual promotion mechanism between sights operation improvement and local economic development.Given the above mentioned,the article analyzes the economics of public scenic spots and specifies three major regulatory motives of maximizing social welfare,government tax revenue,and sights operators'incentives in poverty alleviation districts.Then,the effects of regulation under different regulatory motives as well as the impacts of poverty alleviation policies are derived.Next,the paper continues to propose the principles following which regulations,strategies,and conditions of applicability should be established according to pre-categorization.In this way can the underlying theory of public scenic area regulation by local governments in impoverished areas be revealed.To summarize,this study documents the relationships among the fees paid for admission tickets of public scenic spots,the corresponding poverty-stricken areas'regulatory incentives,and the average sights operating costs,hence putting forward recommendations of dynamic pricing,synergistic construction of policy funding and price regulation,and distinguishing between market forces and non-economic coercive forces of local governments in price regulation.This helps to establish a more incentive-compatible systematic regulation program and also contributes to improving the regulation system of public scenic spots by levels and categories in the lifted-out-of-poverty areas.
public scenic spotsadmission feesmarket powerpublic goodslifted-out-of-poverty districts
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NSTL
万方数据
维普
