Weight Calibration of Marketization Evaluation Indicators for Government Financing Platforms in China Based on Reasoning and Optimization

This paper proposes a novel approach to calibrate weights for scoring items in determining the marketization indicator (MI) of government financing platforms in China, reducing the reliance on expert-estimated indicators. The credit is assigned to a financing platform using a soccer gaming rule, where platforms compete across all scoring items. By formulating an optimization problem grounded in fundamental reasonings of the relationship between credits and MIs, the method provides a more objective assessment of marketization degrees, offering valuable insights into platform performance and positioning. Results from applying the method to financing platforms in a province of western China reveal the significant impact of government capability on the comprehensive marketization indicator, while the policy environment is least weighted, and certain factors do not contribute to the MI estimation. The present method outperforms the conventional Equal Weight (EW) method, demonstrating higher consistency in aligning the ranking of MIs with credits. Although this work successfully reduces subjective judgments, some subjectivity remains in the calibration process.