Abstract:

Objective: In the process of ecological civilization construction, in response to insufficient incentives and structural imbalances faced by state-owned forest farms in undertaking the dual tasks of ecological protection and resource utilization, this study aims to examine how improved incentive mechanisms can enhance the developmental vitality of state-owned forest farms, thereby providing a reference for deepening incentive reform of state-owned forest farms and promoting their high-quality development. Method: Based on a review of the employee performance appraisal system in state-owned forest farms and local practices in performance-based incentives, a multitask principal–agent model was constructed to analyze the incentive structure associated with the dual tasks of state-owned forest farms from the perspectives of external and internal incentives. Comparative-static numerical simulations were then conducted to examine differences in behavioral responses among category Ⅰ public-welfare, category Ⅱ public-welfare, and enterprise-type state-owned forest farms under changes in key parameters. Result: 1) Compared with category Ⅱ public-welfare and enterprise-type state-owned forest farms, category Ⅰ public-welfare state-owned forest farms faced a more pronounced shortage of incentives for resource utilization. 2) Category Ⅰ and category Ⅱ public-welfare state-owned forest farms generally exhibited a stronger orientation toward ecological protection, but allocated relatively insufficient effort to resource-utilization tasks. 3) The existing appraisal weights, benefit-transmission mechanisms, and internal allocation arrangements are asymmetric across the two tasks, making external incentives more likely to be skewed toward ecological protection. 4) When ecological accountability is stringent and the transmission of resource-utilization signals and the realization of related performance-based rewards are relatively weak, information attenuation, ecological accountability pressure, and the compression of incentive differentials in internal allocation further amplify the external incentive bias. 5) The task substitutability and performance uncertainty would further exacerbate the incentive imbalance between the dual tasks of state-owned forest farms. Conclusion: Incentive mechanisms for state-owned forest farms should be optimized through coordinated improvements in external appraisal structures, benefit-transmission mechanisms, internal performance allocation, and differentiated appraisal systems. This study provides an economic explanation for the insufficient developmental vitality of state-owned forest farms and offers a theoretical basis for advancing their category-specific reform.

Key words: state-owned forest farms, multitask principal-agent model, incentive imbalance, classified reform