Summary:
Cross-regional judicial coordination is not only an inherent requirement of the regional coordinated development strategy but also a practical need to enhance people's well-being. With the improvement of China's regional integration, cross-regional economic and social activities have become increasingly frequent, leading to a growing number of frictions among various entities across regions. As a result, cross-regional judicial coordination has emerged as a crucial venue for mediating significant economic interests and concerns among regions. How to enhance the welfare levels of various regions in the process of promoting cross-regional judicial coordination has become a significant practical issue of the construction of the rule of law in China as well as the pursuit of high-quality economic development. Based on the judgment document data of 222 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2022, this paper used the number of court remote entrusted and entrusted cases ruled to reflect the level of urban cross-regional judicial synergy, estimated the level of urban welfare using the MIMIC model. Taking the experience of Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of prefecture-level cities serving in other locations as an instrumental variable of cross-region judicial synergy, this paper employed the IV-2SLS, spatial Durbin model and mediating effect model to examine the impact of cross-regional judicial synergy on regional welfare and its potential impact mechanism. The study found that (1) cross-regional judicial synergy significantly enhanced regional welfare, but the impact of cross-regional judicial synergy on regional welfare showed decreasing characteristics in the eastern, central and western regions. Relative to cross-provincial judicial synergy, intra-provincial judicial synergy has a greater effect on enhancing regional welfare. Cross-regional judicial synergy in contract, debt disputes, corporate law and intellectual property cases exerts a greater effect on regional welfare compared with that in criminal, traffic and other civil cases. (2) There is spatial spillover and regional interaction between judicial synergy and regional welfare, also known as both local and neighboring regions' judicial synergy have positive effects on local welfare. And there are geographic attenuation characteristics and spatial boundaries for the impact of cross-regional judicial synergy on regional welfare. The geographic threshold of cross-regional judicial synergy on regional welfare is 500 km, and the spatial spillover boundary of regional welfare is 600 km. (3) Cross-regional judicial synergy affects regional welfare through six potential mechanisms: resource reallocation, business environment improvement, social and judicial environment advancement, promoting product diversification, improving public services and improving the ecological environment. The marginal contributions of this paper are as follows: The first one is a novel research perspective. This paper examines multidimensional regional welfare issues from the new perspective of cross-regional judicial coordination, thereby expanding the research scope on the economic and social effects of judicial activities. The second one relates to a new measurement method. This paper measures the level of cross-regional judicial coordination at the prefecture-level city scale using microdata on the number of cases entrust and entrusted by grassroots courts, addressing the gap in quantitative measurements of cross-regional judicial coordination. The third one concerns a finer spatial scale of data. Given that China's judicial enforcement entities are primarily concentrated at the prefecture-level city and below, the empirical results obtained using prefecture-level city data in this paper have greater practical significance. The fourth one is about considering the spatial spillover effects of regional welfare and the spatial interaction effects between judicial coordination and regional welfare, while also examining the spatial boundaries within which cross-regional judicial coordination influences regional welfare. This study has important policy implications.Firstly, cross-regional judicial coordination is a crucial means to enhance regional welfare. Efforts should be made to strengthen the alignment between cross-regional judicial coordination and cross-regional economic coordination policies, and to establish a linkage mechanism between judicial institutions and economic management departments across regions. Secondly, leveraging the welfare-enhancing effects of judicial coordination necessitates adhering to the principles of gradualism and regional differentiation. Eastern regions should focus on providing references for central and western regions in terms of institutional design and innovative practices of judicial coordination. Meanwhile, central and western regions should strengthen legal concepts and effectively uphold the fundamental role of the market in resource allocation through judicial coordination. Thirdly, harnessing the regional welfare-enhancing effects of judicial coordination requires adhering to the principle of proceeding from the nearby to the distant and from within the province to outside the province, and formulating differentiated judicial coordination policies. It is necessary to establish holistic, spatial boundary, and multidimensional coordination thinking. Besides, a multidimensional coordination mechanism between cross-regional judicial coordination and the economic system should be established as soon as possible to promote the integration of judicial coordination and economic integration.
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