Research on the Impact of the Audit of Natural Resource Assets of Departing Leadership on Empowering Economic High-Quality Development

领导干部自然资源资产离任审计作为我国审计制度的重大创新逐渐成为国家审计的一项重要政策工具。随着我国经济的发展，推进经济高质量发展成为国家治理的关键目标，有效实施领导干部自然资源资产离任审计成为推动经济高质量发展的关键举措。基于此，本文将2014年领导干部自然资源资产离任审计试点视为一项准自然实验，以2010年~2019年我国31个省级行政区域(不含港澳台地区)的样本数据与试点信息相拟合，构建双重差分模型，实证检验领导干部自然资源资产离任审计赋能经济高质量发展的影响。研究结果表明，领导干部自然资源资产离任审计试点的实施显著提高了经济发展水平。因此，在我国当前经济发展背景下，领导干部自然资源资产离任审计能够在一定程度上促进经济高质量发展。The audit of natural resource assets of departing leadership, as a significant innovation in China’s audit system, has gradually become an important policy tool in national auditing. With the development of China’s economy, promoting high-quality economic development has become a key goal of national governance. Effectively implementing the audit of natural resource assets of departing leadership has become a crucial measure for driving high-quality economic development. Based on this, this paper treats the pilot program of the audit of natural resource assets of departing leadership in 2014 as a quasi-natural experiment. By using sample data from 31 provincial-level administrative regions (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) in China between 2010 and 2019, and matching it with pilot information, a difference-in-differences model is constructed to empirically examine the impact of the audit of natural resource assets of departing leadership on empowering high-quality economic development. The results show that the implementation of the pilot program significantly improved the level of economic development. Therefore, under the current economic development context in China, the audit of natural resource assets of departing leadership can, to a certain extent, promote high-quality economic development.