完善公共财政制度逐步实现公共服务均等化

本文论述了目前我国政府在提供教育、公共卫生、社会保障和社会福利等公共服务方面的缺位问题,分析了提供公共服务不足的体制性原因,即基层财政的财力与事权不相匹配,探讨了地区公共服务水平差距扩大的重要原因,即财政转移支付制度本身存在缺陷.在此基础上,提出改革建议:完善财政体制,规范转移支付制度,试行纵向转移与横向转移相结合的模式,逐步取消税收返还,将其并入一般转移支付形式,科学界定专项转移的标准,控制其准入的条件和规模,完善转移支付的法制化建设.     

Core Concepts of Institutionalist Public Finance: Problem Solving,Institutional Analysis,Strategic Choice,and Stakeholder Engagement

Citizens and policymakers in many nations are becoming increasingly concerned about large budget deficits and mounting long-term fiscal policy challenges. At the same time, slow economic growth in the United States and Europe is causing some people to demand more government spending (and lower taxes) and others to question the efficacy of fiscal policy. Against that backdrop, institutional economists are exhibiting renewed interest in the field of public finance. This article responds by outlining four core concepts of institutionalist public finance: problem solving, institutional analysis, strategic choice, and stakeholder engagement. What distinguishes the perspective of institutionalism from that of neoclassical economics, today’s dominant economic paradigm, is described in the course of the discussion. The core concepts of institutionalist public finance offer a coherent approach to the study of fiscal policy questions. Those concepts were first fashioned decades ago, but remain relevant: institutionalism continues to provide a solid basis for constructive analyses of fiscal challenges.     

PUBLIC FINANCE AND INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES OVER GLOBALIZATION STRATEGIES

Do preferences toward globalization strategies vary across public‐finance regimes? In this paper, we use data on individual preferences toward immigration and trade policy to examine how pre‐tax and post‐tax cleavages differ across globalization strategies and state fiscal jurisdictions. High exposure to immigrant fiscal pressures reduces support for freer immigration among U.S. natives, especially the more skilled. The magnitude of this post‐tax fiscal cleavage is comparable to the pre‐tax labor‐market effects of skill itself. There is no public‐finance variation in opinion over trade policy, consistent with U.S. trade policy having negligible fiscal‐policy impacts. Public finance thus appears to shape opinions toward globalization strategies.     

土地革命时期中国共产党的财政思想研究*

在中国共产党诞生百年之际，在中国社会经济转型升级的今天，在财政已经上升为国家治理基础和重要支柱的背景下，研究和总结中国共产党在土地革命战争时期的财政思想具有重要的现实指导意义。思想根源于现实也反映现实，土地革命时期特定的社会政治经济背景孕育了中国共产党早期的财政思想，具体包括财政收入、财政支出和财政管理三大方面。这三个方面的思想密切关联，初步形成了中国共产党新民主主义革命早期传统财政学的雏形，构成了新中国社会主义财政学的重要基础，对于我国当今财政工作和现代财政制度建设具有重要的现实指导意义。     

不动产税应成为我国市级财政的主体税种——以成都市为例

不完善的分税制财政体制经过十多年的运行,其负面影响日渐突出,已经影响到经济发展和社会稳定.本文根据我国地方财政运行的现状,结合房地产税的理论分析,提出房地产税改革的主要目标应定位为地方政府提供稳定可持续的收入来源,并以成都市为案例来说明改革后的不动产税是否能够成为市级财政的主体税种.     

Duplication or experimentation: how local governors make policies under new administrative circumstances

This article shows that turnover of local governors increases the similarity of fiscal policies using the data of 320 prefectural-level cities from 2005 to 2012 in China. More generally, local governors duplicate successful experience rather than explore policies accommodating the specificity of their ruling areas when they are faced with new administrative circumstances. The structure and effects of the network resulting from the imitation of policies could be an important research topic in the future.     

Comment

Opposite to mainstream economics, (post-) Keynesian economics has defended the need of a discretionary fiscal policy that helps to maintain economic activity at a full employment level, offsetting the cyclical deviations from that level of output. In this sense, it is implicitly assumed that any discretionary management of public finance is, by definition, efficient. The Spanish case shows that public authorities can make an inefficient use of the discretionary room of fiscal policy, thus exacerbating the existing macroeconomic and fiscal imbalances. Consequently, there is a need for rules that constrain the discretionary management of public finance.     

基于公共品资本化的地方财政激励制度研究*——土地财政如何影响公共品提供

本文以中国的城镇化为背景,运用公共品资本化原理,分析了地方土地财政制度,包括土地出让金收入制度与房地产相关税收制度,对地方公共品提供激励的传导机制。城市级面板数据的实证分析表明：土地财政对地方公共品提供具有结构性的激励效应,但该激励机制建立在土地和房产交易之上,地方财政努力程度被交易时点截然分割。改革土地财政制度,完善房地产税收体系,实现从交易型向保有型“土地溢价回收”制度转换,将有助于建立对称的、可持续的地方财政激励制度。     

Variation in the fiscal multiplier with the method of financing: evidence across industrial countries

Government spending has often varied with the business cycle to stimulate the economy and to revive economic conditions. However, the state of public finances has often necessitated higher borrowing to finance widening fiscal deficits. Indeed, recent austerity packages around the globe have crystalized the importance of fiscal consolidation against the backdrop of rising public debt. To shed light on recent debates regarding fiscal multipliers, the article estimates variation in these multipliers with the method of financing, using annual data for a sample of industrial countries. There is a large variation in the effects of expansionary and contractinary government spending shocks on economic variables within and across countries. The significant effects of negative government spending shocks (fiscal contraction) appear more prevalent than those of expansionary shocks on real output growth, price inflation and nominal wage inflation. Consistent with theory’s predictions, the fiscal multiplier is more likely to be negative when government spending is financed by issuing debt and less likely in the case of monetization. The evidence confirms concerns about the negative effect of higher debt and more expensive financing on private activity, countering the effectiveness of fiscal policy.     

政府公共卫生支出行为影响因素的实证分析

公共卫生支出属于财政支出的重要组成部分。随着我国公共财政体制的建立,合理界定公共卫生支出占财政支出的比重显得尤为重要。本文使用31省、直辖市、自治区2000—2010年的面板数据,实证分析了我国地方政府公共卫生支出的影响因素。研究表明,人口规模、人口结构、城市化程度与政府公共卫生支出并没有必然的因果关系;经济发展水平和政府机构及人员的膨胀程度与政府公共卫生支出之间存在着正相关关系;财政分权也只是对公共卫生支出产生很小的正面影响。     

Financial development,institutional quality and maximizing-growth trade-off in government finance

This paper studies monetary and fiscal policies in an endogenous growth model with transaction costs. We show that the relation between long-run economic growth and both monetary and fiscal policies is subject to threshold effects, a result that gives account of a number of recent empirical findings. Furthermore, the model shows that, to finance public expenditures, growth-maximizing governments must choose relatively high seigniorage (respectively income taxation), if “institutional quality” and “financial development” indicators are low (respectively high). Thus, our model may explain why some governments resort to seigniorage and inflationary finance, and others rather resort to high tax rates, as a result of growth-maximizing strategies in different structural environments (notably concerning institutional and financial development contexts). In addition, the model allows examining how the optimal mix of government finance changes in response to different public debt contexts. A short empirical section confirms our theoretical results.     

中国地方公共卫生财政支出效率研究——基于DEA-Malmquist指数的实证分析

笔者选取我国2005年至2008年间省级公共卫生的投入与产出数据为样本,运用数据包络分析(DEA)方法核算了我国地方财政卫生支出的技术效率值、纯技术效率值以及规模效率值,并通过测算Malmquist指数以衡量中国地方公共卫生财政支出生产率的动态变化。研究结果表明,我国地方公共卫生财政支出存在着24%的投入浪费,其中规模效率影响了整体技术效率。从动态上看,地方公共卫生财政支出全要素生产率在样本期间内逐年下降,原因是受到生产技术变动的影响。     

Fiscal consolidation by intergovernmental transfers cuts? The unpleasant effect on expenditure arrears

For the period 2003–2014, we investigate unexplored effects of fiscal consolidation in decentralized public finance on a large dataset of Italian municipalities. Based on a simple, realistic theoretical model, we show that municipalities increase arrears on committed investment expenditure as a response to intergovernmental transfer cuts. Then, we test our predictions controlling for potential sources of endogeneity, and find that a reduction in intergovernmental transfers causes a significant increase in arrears, in addition to other common adjustments to local fiscal policies (e.g., tax revenues). Our results highlight a perverse effect of fiscal consolidation packages implemented by centrally imposed fiscal restraints.     

我国生态环境保护和治理的财政政策选择

环境的公共产品性质和外部性，决定了它应该成为政府财政投资的重点。因而财政政策对环境保护和治理的影响极大。从总体上看，我国的财政政策在支持生态环境保护和治理中发挥了重要作用。但由于财政政策在设计上存在着缺陷，致使其在生态环境建设中的支持作用未能完全发挥。基于此，本文提出了完善我国生态环境可持续发展的财政政策建议。     

地方官员更替与经济增长

改革开放以来,中国的省长、省委书记更替成为一种常态,现有文献忽视了其对辖区经济增长的影响,本文对此进行了探讨。在理论上,我们讨论了多种地方官员更替影响短期经济增长的机制,强调省长、省委书记更替会对辖区经济增长带来短期的负面影响。在实证上,我们采用1979—2006年间我国29个省区的官员更替样本进行检验。结果发现,省长省委书记更替对辖区经济增长有显著的负面影响;这种影响的程度因地方官员更替频率、更替的地方官员的年龄等因素的不同而不同;地方官员更替主要影响辖区的短期经济增长波动,并非长期经济增长趋势。本文的发现是稳健的,能够增进对如何现实省区经济平稳增长的理解。     

财政纵向失衡、公共支出结构与经济增长*

全面深化财税体制改革释放体制红利是助推地方经济增长与民生福祉增进的关键所在。为此,本文首先从理论层面系统诠释财政纵向失衡对经济增长的作用机制,继而通过构建动态面板联立方程模型将财政纵向失衡、公共支出结构与经济增长同时纳入分析框架,实证探究财政纵向失衡对地方经济增长的影响效应,而后通过进一步标准化回归估计考察财政纵向失衡对经济增长的作用渠道与传导效应。研究发现财政纵向失衡不仅通过直接作用渠道显著降低经济增长,还通过作用于地方政府公共支出结构间接对经济增长产生负向抑制效应。     

Fiscal space on the eurozone periphery and the use of the (partially) balanced-budget multiplier: The case of Spain

This article adopts the “functional finance” approach to consider the utilization of expansive fiscal policies in the members of the European Monetary Union most affected by high unemployment. As they do not have their own monetary policy, fiscal deficits require the issuing of public debt without the support of the central bank. The authors consequently incorporate the notion of a (partially) balanced-budget expansion to achieve the desired stimulus in gross domestic product (GDP) with the least possible effect on public debt. Their proposal is only a sort of “imperfect” balanced-budget expansion: It is based on the idea that simultaneous increases in public revenue and expenditure can boost GDP, but without any pretension of keeping public deficit unchanged. Specifically, the authors use the case of Spain to show that a more expansive fiscal policy is desirable on economic grounds, and that only institutional constraints prevent it. They do it presenting two alternative scenarios for the coming years and analyzing their different impact on unemployment and fiscal sustainability. The first represents a firm commitment to budget consolidation, whereas the second is based on this “imperfect” application of the balanced budget multiplier. The main conclusion is that a more expansive fiscal policy is perfectly compatible with finance sustainability.     

浅析新农村建设中的财政支持与金融支持的配合运用

在分析财政支持与金融支持在新农村建设中配合运用的必要性的基础上,认为财政支持是新农村建设的保障,金融支持是新农村建设的基础,通过两者的有效配合才能更好地实现社会主义新农村建设的伟大目标。在此基础上分析了财政支持与金融支持在新农村建设中配合运用的几种具体方式,主要包括：财政在为新农村建设提供公共产品时应利用金融的方式和手段,发挥财政支持对农村金融发展的引导作用,财政支持与金融支持相配合来共同满足新农村建设的资金需求,农业政策性金融是财政支持与金融支持相结合的产物。     

The impact of decentralization of health services on health outcomes: evidence from Canada

This article contributes to the limited empirical literature on the impact of decentralization on economic welfare by investigating the hypothesis that shifts towards more fiscal decentralization in health services would be accompanied by improvements in population health. Building on a conventional public finance model applied to health care, this hypothesis is tested on a panel data of the highly decentralized Canadian provinces during the period 1979 to 1995. The results of the exploratory empirical analysis presented in this article suggest that fiscal decentralization of health services in Canada has had a positive and substantial influence on the effectiveness of public policy in improving a population's health over the period studied.     

财政政策:遵守规则还是相机抉择

2004年10月,诺贝尔经济学奖的颁发,又一次引发了人们对财政政策时间一致性的关注,遵守规则的政策主张似乎又一次回归主流。通过比较英、美等发达市场经济国家财政政策的变迁以及通过分析政策规则与相机抉择不同的理论假设,我认为在制定财政政策时必须两者兼顾。我国现行的稳健(中性)财政政策恰恰体现了这种思想的内涵与本质。