The Effects of Fiscal Decentralization on Household Income Inequality: Some Empirical Evidence

Abstract

We investigate the effects of fiscal decentralization on income inequality using a sample of 23 OECD countries over the period 1971–2000. We utilize novel and robust measures of fiscal decentralization based on different degrees of fiscal autonomy of sub-central governments. Our results highlight the importance of both the nature of fiscal decentralization—expenditure versus revenue—and the extent to which independent spending responsibility and taxing powers are actually assigned to local governments. A higher degree of tax decentralization is associated with higher household income inequality within a country. Thus, even if fiscal decentralization could be attractive according to efficiency reasons, it may actually have undesirable consequences on the income distribution.     

The Revenue Adequacy of Site Value Taxation in a Ricardian System of Economic Growth

A bstract . The federal administration has sought to reduce the growth of federal expenditures by shifting some government costs to state and local governments. An increased expenditure burden for the latter governments would require increased tax rates for existing types of taxes that have adverse impacts on economic incentives. Land taxes are considered as a source of revenue because of their efficiency aspects. Unfortunately this idea is all too often dismissed because of alleged revenue inadequacy. Thus an analysis is called for of the revenue adequacy of site value taxation in a Ricardian model of economic growth. The model allows analysis of revenue adequacy over time in an economic growth context that is suited for the long range tax-expenditure planning horizon with which local governments are faced. When revenue needs are primarily dependent upon the population size, and the fisc is initially operating at a deficit, for a land tax to permit attainment of balance, per capita rents must be increasing over time. Also when the economy's public service demand is primarily dependent upon income, deficits will not occur if rental share exceeds the share of income devoted to public output. Not all income goes to fiscal output, so rent eventually exceeds expenditures.     

我国财政政策对产业结构优化的时变效应

研究目标：财政政策对产业结构优化的时变性影响。研究方法：构建带有随机波动率的时变参数因子扩展向量自回归模型,进而通过三维脉冲响应展开时变性分析。研究发现：财政政策对产业结构优化确实产生了时变效应,在经济衰退时期,应该增加财政支出、提高投资性支出占比,结合小幅度减税、提高营业税和消费税占比;在经济平稳时期,应该减少税收、提高营业税占比、降低增值税占比,结合小幅度增加财政支出、提高投资性支出占比、降低一般公共服务支出占比;在经济高涨时期,应该增加财政支出、提高科技支出和投资性支出占比,结合小幅度减税、提高所得税占比、降低营业税占比。研究创新：应用时变参数计量模型研究了财政政策对产业结构优化的时变效应。研究价值：有助于重新认识财政政策与产业结构优化的关系。     

Prioritization of government expenditure on health in India: A fiscal space perspective

Unequal distribution of fiscal resources and lower prioritization of budget towards healthcare are the most important challenges in achieving universal health coverage in India. This study has examined relationships between government health expenditure and fiscal space (i.e. tax revenue, non-tax revenue, fiscal transfer, and borrowings) in twenty-one states of India for the period of 1980–2014. Our panel regression results imply that mobilization of tax revenue has a positive impact, while borrowings have a negative impact on the allocation of government expenditure on healthcare in the long-run. The panel quantile regression results show that states associated with the low and middle level of revenue growth have been mobilizing finance through central government transfer and borrowings in short-run. Further, the panel vector error correction models show that sum of the lagged coefficients of borrowings have a greater impact on health financing process as compared to other sources of fiscal space at short-run, and the speed of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium is relatively slower. The overall analysis concludes that less domestic revenue mobilization and higher dependency of borrowings for healthcare financing may create fiscal stress on state finances in the long-run, and thereby it could possibly reduce the prioritization of spending. Therefore, improvement in revenue growth and proper utilization of fiscal transfer would be appropriate policy implications from this study.     

房地产税改革与土地财政困局破解——基于对地方财政影响的情景分析

地方政府过度依赖土地出让收入是当前中国公共管理面临的重要难题。改革房地产税制并触发土地制度的连锁反应是破解中国土地治理困局的基本出路。通过预测不同改革方案下典型城市住房相关土地财政收入变化,评估房地产税替代土地出让（纯）收益成为地方支柱性收入源的前景。研究发现,如果合理设计覆盖城市存量和新增住房的房地产税,可在短期内保证地方土地财政收入的相对稳定,并在远期实现房地产税替代土地出让金成为地方财政支柱的目标,增强土地财政收入的可持续性。近期政府应改变“重流转、轻保有”的状况,将房地产税培育成为地方主体税种,远期应推进城乡一体化土地市场体系、土地出让制度和土地增值税制度联动改革,使地方土地财政收入从以一次性的土地出让纯收益为主向以持续的房产保有税、土地增值税等为主转变,促进政府土地管理本位职能回归,破解土地财政与政府治理困局。     

Grants structure in an intergovernmental fiscal game

Abstract. Systems of intergovernmental grants change over time. We explain this observation in terms of political and economic shocks in a noncooperative game between federal and provincial governments. The effects on the equilibrium grants structure arising from political disagreement, fiscal burden, increased revenue instability, and federalistic behaviour are examined. Our results provide a new theoretical perspective on grants. We show that the role of matching grants may be to influence the pattern of social spending by provincial or state governments, while conditional lump-sum grants are used simultaneously to determine the composition of the tax burden across the levels of government. Received: January 2001 / accepted: April 2002 We are grateful for the helpful comments received from Richard Bird, Amihai Glazer, and two anonymous referees.     

中国现代财政制度构建的目标、进程与现状评估

按照财政改革目标,2020年是我国现代财政制度基本建成之年。在本轮改革中,直接税比重提升有限,税收结构有待优化,地方税体系尚未建立;支出结构有待优化,政府职能转变尚未体现。预算制度中,全面规范尚待提升,公开透明尚需加强;绩效管理仍需扎实推进,预算标准尚待完善。财政体制在维持既有财力分配的同时,划分了事权和支出责任,但地方还是依赖于中央,分税制逐渐蜕变为分钱制。围绕国家治理现代化,中国现代财政制度的构建还有待在财政投入、财政支出、财政制度以及财政体制等方面持续推进。     

我国财政转移支付法律制度框架探析——基于国际比较视野

分税制改革以来,政府间转移支付在我国的财政体系中占有越来越重要的地位.与此极不相称的是,我国目前的转移支付制度的法律规范完全依靠中央政府特别是财政部以及地方政府相关部门的条例.这种无法(由全国人大及其常委会通过的法律)可依的局面亟待改变.本文利用新制度主义经济学的“委托-代理”交易成本分析框架,从理论上说明建立政府间财政转移支付法律框架的必要性,然后借鉴若干发达国家和发展中国家在转移支付法律建设上的实践经验,探讨我国的现状和改进的方向.     

政府间财政支出竞争性多标准检验及效应传导——兼析财政支出竞争的地区差异效应

本文运用绝对收敛标准、条件收敛标准、空间相关系数标准和变异系数标准对我国政府间财政支出竞争的存在性进行了检验.随后通过地方财政支出行为与地区经济增长的效应传导机制的梳理,实证分析了我国财政支出竞争的地区差异效应.     

On fiscal disparities across cities

Some cities have fewer taxable resources and higher costs for providing public services than do other cities. The result, which is widely regarded as unfair, is a wide variation in the ability of cities to supply public services. But our understanding of these fiscal disparities, particularly on the cost side, is limited. This paper provides a general treatment of fiscal disparities by incorporating input and environmental costs into a model of local expenditure determination, investigating the consequences of fiscal disparities in a system of local governments (including housing price adjustments and migration), and designing intergovernmental grants to offset fiscal disparities.     

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF FEDERAL VERSUS STATE EDUCATION FINANCE IN MEXICO

While decentralization is on the forefront of the reform agenda of many developing countries, few studies have performed empirical analysis to provide a holistic picture of the important fiscal, efficiency, and equity issues. Specifically, decentralization nearly always involves fiscal and administrative decisions by both national and sub-national governments, as well as intricate intergovernmental relations. Here, two empirical models are presented for the Mexican primary and secondary education sector. The first analyzes the efficiency-equity trade-off implicit the Mexican Federal Government's educational fiscal transfers to states. Unlike most similar analyses, this model analyzes the distribution of outcomes not simply expenditures. The second model analyzes the relative productivity of separate expenditures by the Federal and state governments before Mexico's recent educational decentralization legislation. The findings show that before the decentralization, the Federal Government exhibited some concern for equity, but that in doing so also treated states unequally according to criteria that have little to do with either efficiency or equity. In addition, the results show that the Federal Government may indeed have been the more efficient provider of primary and secondary education, raising concern for the fiscal and administrative relationship set up by the decentralization legislation: the Federal Government will continue to pay, while the states have gained relative autonomy over expenditures.     

住房保障视角下的房地产税改革策略研究

房地产税改革不仅仅关系到中央和地方间的财事权分配、普通居民的税收负担,关系到房地产市场的稳定发展,也会对我国城镇住房保障体系的建设和创新形成制度约束.本文介绍了房地产税收政策支持住房保障体系建设的国际经验,运用经济学理论,分析了在我国当前的住房保障制度中,房地产税改革对不同类型保障性住房建设和运营的影响.在此基础上,提...     

Community Classification and Growth in Effective Property Tax Rates: A Case Study of Rate Divergence in 39 Rhode Island Towns

Abstract . A multiple regression analysis of cross-sectional data for 39 Rhode Island towns indicates that variation in the level of effective property tax rates among communities can be substantially explained. The determinants are a community's population density, median family income, real property per capita, and the ratio of commercial to total property tax, revenue. Population density serves as a criterion for judging the “cityness” (1) of a community, that is, its degree of urbanization. A positive relationship exists between population density and effective property tax rate. Communities with the highest population density tend to have the highest tax rates. This relationship is shown in each analyzed year. Covariance analysis applied to the regression coefficients for the various years reveals a significant change in the population density coefficient. This coefficient change indicates a divergence in effective property tax rates among city, suburban, and rural communities.     

Tax Competition and Revelation of Preferences for Public Expenditure

This paper considers a federal country composed of local jurisdictions that differ in their inhabitants' tastes for public goods, and which finance local public expenditure through a source-based tax on capital income. The taste for public goods is the private information of local governments. The central government seeks an optimal policy, in which grants to local governments are conditioned on local tax rates. The uninformed central government seeks both to allocate capital efficiently among jurisdictions, and to induce jurisdictions to provide an efficient mix of private and public consumption. It is shown that there persist at this constrained optimum both some misallocation of capital and some violation of the Samuelson rule for optimal public good provision in every jurisdiction.     

北京地方财政可持续发展的协整分析

地方财政可持续发展是财政收入、财政支出、经济发展三位一体的系统平衡与协调。本文对北京市1978-2012年的财政收入、财政支出和经济增长的协整检验结果表明其财政可持续发展能力比较好;Granger因果检验结果表明经济快速增长是北京市财政可持续发展的关键,但财政收入弹性较小、财政支出对经济的刺激作用不明显是影响财政可持续发展的深层问题;最后,从提高财政收入质量、提高财政支出效益和加强财政监管三方面提出了提升北京市财政可持续发展能力的建议。     

State and local fiscal policy and growth at the border

The paper studies the connection between state and local fiscal policy, as measured by the share of government spending and revenues in personal income, and the economic activity of counties that share a state border. I construct a panel of pairs of US counties that share a state border from the 1970s to 2012. Economic activity is measured by county employment, wages and business establishments. The state and local government spending and revenue shares are aggregates for the states on the respective sides of the border. I estimate distributed lag regressions of changes in economic activity on changes in state and local government budgets in two ways. The first (double difference) utilizes change in the difference between border counties. This suggests a quite modest relocation of economic activity away from states with fiscal expansion. I then look at activity on each side of the border separately and find more substantial and consistently negative effects of fiscal expansion on both sides of the border. A border county shares the negative consequences for its neighbor of growth in the size of that neighbor's state and local governments. This negative fiscal externality is roughly half the size of the direct negative effects from similar own-state spending increases, and the sum of the two is substantial economically.     

浅谈我国个人所得税存在的问题及改革建议

税收的主要职能与作用是筹集财政收入,调节收入分配和调控经济。其中,个人所得税是调节收入分配的重要手段,我国个人所得税政策实行以来,在这方面一直都发挥了积极的作用。但是随着社会主义市场经济的不断发展,个人所得税体制也需要改革。文章根据最新个税草案,对我国个人所得税存在的问题进行分析,并对充分发挥个税调节功能,缓解分配不公的矛盾提出改革建议。     

Electoral accountability and local government efficiency: quasi-experimental evidence from the Italian health care sector reforms

This paper evaluates the effect of two policy changes on the efficiency of Italian regional governments in the provision of health care services: first a change in the electoral system, second a process of fiscal decentralisation. The paper provides two main contributions: (1) a comprehensive analysis of the two main reforms that involved Italian regional governments and the health care sector during the 1990s, (2) the evaluation of the impact of the electoral reform in a quasi-experimental setting. Final results are in line with recent theoretical predictions that show a positive relationship between government efficiency and the electoral accountability enhanced by institutions such as electoral rules and fiscal decentralisation.     

Tax Policy Coordination, Vertical Externalities, and Optimal Taxation in a System of Hierarchical Governments

Tax policies of two levels of government (state and federal) with overlapping tax bases are considered. This overlap leads to “vertical” fiscal externalities are considered when several different commodities are in the tax base and the tax bases of the two levels of government may not be identical. When the governments share a tax base, the mix of combined taxes is optimal. With different tax bases, combined taxes are no longer optimal as federal tax rates are adjusted to reflect state public service levels. When grants are available, a welfare-maximizing mix of taxes and public services is obtained.