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It has been established that culture can contribute to the sustainable development of a country and the world. In China, cultural demands are increasing while cultural resources are relatively scarce. Therefore, this paper evaluates the efficiency of public cultural services in China from 2013 to 2017 and analyzes the major factors affecting this efficiency based on the panel data of 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions (hereafter referred to as “provinces”) in mainland China. The super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was adopted. The results show that the efficiency of the public cultural services in each province is significantly different, and the overall efficiency shows a downward trend from 2013 to 2017. The gross domestic product per capita, the education level of the residents, fiscal decentralization, and population density significantly impact public culture service efficiency. Based on these results, the following policy recommendations are proposed: (1) Optimize the input structure of public cultural services and adjust the service direction to satisfy the emerging needs for a more diversified and personalized public with economic development and the improvement of education level; (2) adjust the allocation of public cultural resources nationwide and facilitate the flow of public cultural resources from developed to underdeveloped areas; and (3) provide local governments with higher fiscal autonomy and appropriately introduce the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to utilize private capital.
Wang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.