The Use and Abuse of Accounting in the Public Sector Financial Management Reform Program in Australia

Accrual accounting has been central to financial management reforms designed to promote greater efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in the Australian public sector. This is the setting for the article; however, the issues covered apply to all nations that have reformed their public sectors over recent years. The results of the reforms have been mixed. While accrual accounting has had some beneficial results for the above purposes, the benefits have been offset by aspects of accounting misuse resulting largely from adoption of the business model of accrual accounting, termination of the former cash accounting system, and adoption of some questionable marketization reforms which appear to be more driven by the objective of reducing the size of government rather than enhancing efficiency of operations. Because Treasury believed that the business model was not appropriate for budget fiscal policy purposes, it introduced a second combined accrual and cash accounting system—the Government Finance Statistics system. The use of two accrual accounting systems reporting different results caused much confusion in parliament.     

中国财政政策乘数效应分析

财政政策是逆周期宏观调控的重要举措,财政政策乘数高低体现了宏观政策的效果,对政府决策具有重要的参考价值.本文基于IS-LM的拓展模型,估计得到2002-2017年间的财政支出乘数在0.58到0.67之间,税收乘数在-0.22到-0.18之间,私人投资乘数在1.16到1.8之间,财政支出乘数较以往研究有较大的下降,沿用传统的刺激需求政策不可持续.通过对财政支出乘数传导机制的进一步研究发现,财政支出对居民消费的拉动作用在一定程度上被政府投资对消费的挤出效应所抵消,政府投资对私人投资的带动效应也受到财政支出挤出效应的抵消,宽松货币政策的配合可以减少财政支出挤出效应.最后基于分析给出相关政策建议.     

分税与地方财政支出结构

本文研究了税收分成对地方财政支出结构的影响。理论分析发现,在地方政府的财政支出结构竞争中,税收分成比例的提高将直接导致地方政府增加生产性公共支出,发挥生产性支出的产出外部性,提高产出水平和自身税收收入水平,实现福利最大化。一系列经验分析显著地验证了上述结论,即当地级市政府的税收分成率提高10%,该地区生产性支出占比将提高1.39%。本文的分析和结论有助于解释中国地方财政支出结构变动的原因,从而为政府间税收分配改革提供有效的政策建议。     

美国财政和货币政策的困境与出路

本文分析了美国财政和货币政策的局限和困境,并探讨了其政策出路。本文突破了财政政策对私有部门挤出效应的传统分析方法,采用宽松货币和财政政策的交互作用,从更广泛视角分析政府政策的挤出效应;以个人和企业资产负债表在不同时期的状态及调整为框架,并突破货币政策分析将利息作为负债成本的传统方法,将利息也作为资产收益评估政策效果;运用这一框架,并采用"核心GDP"作为经济增长质量和可持续性的指标,分析美国最近财政和货币政策的局限和出路。     

深化财政改革应保持收支同步推进

财政的分配职能主要是通过财政的收入与支出来实现的。对任何国家的政府而言，财政收支平衡应该是其财政的最高目标。尽管凯恩斯以后，有些国家政府实行以赤字财政政策来刺激经济增长、扩大需求、实现就业。但是，如果一国政府的财政赤字过大、收支难以平衡的话，那么国民对政府调控经济，发挥其职能作用的信任程度就将大打折扣。在我国，财政收支管理的“越位”与“缺位”问题已经是不争的事实，收入地出两条线的管理也显得极不协调，需要及时地进行改革。     

A modern history of fiscal prudence and profligacy

Drawing on a newly collected historical dataset of fiscal stocks and flows, we analyze the determinants of variation, both across countries and over time, in how fiscal policy responds to increases in the government debt-to-GDP ratio. The fiscal data comprise revenues, primary expenditures, interest bill, and government debt for 55 countries for up to two hundred years. The policy response (increase in the primary fiscal balance in response to debt increases) is found to be significantly weaker when sovereign borrowing costs are low, inflation is high, and potential economic growth worsens unexpectedly. These results are robust to political factors.     

国库现金管理对我国货币政策的影响:一个实证分析

中央财政管理的国库资金是社会资金流量中的一个重要组成部分,对中央银行制定货币政策、调控货币供应量和公开市场操作都影响重大,在现代市场经济条件下,国库已成为连接财政和金融的窗口和桥梁,对财政政策和货币政策的有机配合发挥着重要的作用。本文以近年来我国正在开展的国库集中支付制度改革为背景,实证分析了国库现金管理对我国货币政策格局的影响,提出了我国进一步提高国库管理水平、加强货币政策管理的政策建议。     

Signals from the government: Policy disagreement and the transmission of fiscal shocks

We investigate the effects of fiscal policy communication on the propagation of government spending shocks. To this aim, we propose a new index measuring the coordination effects of policy communication on private agents׳ expectations. This index is based on the disagreement amongst US professional forecasters about future government spending. The underlying intuition is that a clear fiscal policy communication can coalesce expectations, reducing disagreement. Results indicate that, in times of low disagreement, the output response to fiscal spending innovations is positive and large, mainly due to private investment response. Conversely, periods of elevated disagreement are characterised by muted output response.     

地方政府债券发行与国库现金管理协调配合的实证研究

近年来,我国地方政府债券发行与国库现金管理工作获得了快速推进,二者作为 财政资金筹措和使用的两个方面,互为依存、密不可分,但目前我国对二者之间的有效协调配 合尚缺乏充实的理论研究和成熟的操作经验支撑。随着我国经济增速下探,地方政府债务风险 不断累积,财政收支压力加剧,加强地方政府债券发行与国库现金管理的协调配合研究,对于 优化政府债务结构,提高国库资金使用效率和收益,确保财政资金流动性安全,具有重要价值 和现实意义。本文从我国地方政府债券发行与国库现金管理发展现状入手,探析二者协调配合 中存在的主要问题,运用平衡控制模型,以实证分析的方式,从技术层面提出解决意见,同时 就优化二者协调配合操作方式和政策路径选择提出了建议,以期有所启发和帮助。     

我国积极财政政策风险实证分析

本文从宏观经济运行和财政运行两个方面对我国积极财政政策的风险问题进行实证分析。基本结论是：(1)积极财政政策在一定程度上实现了部分预期目标，实施该政策要比不实施该政策要好。如果企图通过一直实施该政策来实现预期目标，则财政风险是存在的；(2)我国国债在总量上不存在风险问题，财政风险主要存在于结构上。     

The real impact of a one-off fiscal restriction: empirical evidence of a flypaper effect in Flemish municipalities

This paper analyses the effects of a one-off fiscal restriction on Flemish local government spending. The authors provide evidence of a ‘flypaper effect’: fiscal restriction stimulated the sensitivity of local spending to grants. This means that higher-level governments (regional/national/supranational) need to take a flypaper effect into account when considering one-off fiscal restrictions on lower-level governments.     

用活万亿“闲”钱

2010年是我国现代国库制度建设10周年。在这一年的工作要点中,财政部国库司(国库支付中心)明确提出:进一步健全和完善中央国库现金管理运作机制,积极稳妥开展地方国库现金管理试点。由国库现金如何更好地进行市场化理财,引深到财政性资金如何更好地与金     

The influence of the nature of government accounting and reporting in decision-making: evidence from Switzerland

A key objective of government accounting and reporting has been to achieve accountability and its use in that respect has been well documented, however its use for decision-making has had less coverage. This article addresses the latter issue, providing evidence from Switzerland that the accounting basis used (accrual versus cash) influences decision-making. This is the result of the effect that the different approaches have on the nature of the information used for decision-making. Switzerland was among the first western democracies to adopt accrual accounting at both state (canton) and local levels of government in the 1980s. The Swiss federal government followed in 2007. The main examples of the use of accrual information in decision-making are: the focus on self-financing of investments in order to control borrowing, as well as the fiscal policy targets of debt reduction and maintenance of capital. All three require accrual basis information. Therefore accrual basis information is key in fiscal decision-making in Switzerland.     

疫情之下增强财政免疫力的思考

应对疫情的财政政策对财政自身的收支平衡产生很大的冲击,这更凸显了财政制度建设的重要性。本文认为,财政制度建设需要建立在以下六个认识基础上:国家需要与其经济发展阶段相匹配的财力;税收成本一般低于其他形式财政收入;税收第一位功能是筹集财政收入,而不是其他;通过国有企业支撑财政不是长久之计;提高财政透明度、加强财政预算审查是财政提质增效的最好办法;财政改革最终落脚到现代治理观念和方式的变革。     

Fiscal consolidations and bank balance sheets

We empirically investigate the effects of fiscal policy on bank balance sheets, focusing on episodes of fiscal consolidation. To this aim, we employ a very large data set of individual banks' balance sheets, combined with a newly compiled data set on fiscal consolidations. We find that standard capital adequacy ratios such as the Tier-1 ratio tend to improve following episodes of fiscal consolidation: for the median bank in our sample, a 1% of GDP fiscal consolidation increases the Tier-1 capital ratio by around 1.5 percentage points over two years. Our results suggest that this improvement results from a portfolio re-balancing from private to public debt securities which reduces the risk-weighted value of assets. In fact, if fiscal adjustment efforts are perceived as structural policy changes that improve the sustainability of public finances and, therefore, reduce credit risk, the banks' demand for government securities should increase relative to other assets.     

“稳增长”与“防风险”双目标的宏观调控政策抉择

“防风险”和“稳增长”是当前宏观调控的两大政策目标,为此,本文构建一个平衡兼顾双重政策目标的门限理论模型框架,基于反事实方法评估了动态平衡上述两大目标的最优财政货币政策组合。研究表明:(1)2008年以前,财政政策和货币政策都表现出较强的稳增长政策功效,但国际金融危机后,政策取向更倾向于动态平衡“稳增长”与“防风险”目标。(2)财政政策对三部门杠杆的影响呈现显著增强态势,数量型货币政策效果则在经历“增加—下降”周期后趋于稳定,利率政策效果显著而且近年来呈现增强态势,由此表明利率的传导效果正在不断得以强化。(3)从反事实结果看,宏观调控的最优政策搭配抉择取决于政策当局在动态平衡不同目标中的政策取向,特别是,依赖于精准调控“稳增长”与“防风险”目标的偏好强度。     

What Are Assets and Liabilities? Where Is True North? (Accounting That my Sister Would Understand)

This is an article about what I think financial accounting and reporting ought to look like—about my vision that the singular focus of financial accounting and reporting should be on cash, that is, cash itself, contractual claims to cash, things (assets) that can be converted into cash, and obligations to pay cash, and that assets and liabilities should be stated at fair value in corporate balance sheets. I call this formulationTrue North. I previously have written about how we should keep financial accounting and reporting simple (‘Keep It Simple’, Accounting Horizons, June 1991, pp. 113–17). I also have written about how assets should be defined for accounting purposes (‘What Is an Asset?’, Accounting Horizons, Septem‐ber 1993, pp. 66–70). This article builds on those two earlier ones. It deals with definitions of assets and liabilities that should be recognized (that is, displayed, shown, or reported) in corporate balance sheets and how the recognized assets and liabilities should be measured when reported in those balance sheets.     

新冠肺炎疫情对我国财政经济的影响及其应对之策

新冠肺炎疫情的发生对我国财政经济造成重大冲击。本文基于当前疫情发展信息,初步评估其对2020年财政收支的影响程度。研究发现,新冠肺炎疫情将导致2020年财政减收增支在1.2—1.7万亿元之间,做好今年的财政平衡工作“压力山大”。因此本文提出,要财政收入、财政支出、赤字债务“三管齐下”、多措并举,一方面调整支出结构,提高赤字率和债务规模,另一方面积极挖掘收入侧的潜力,提高财政部门对于政府收入的统筹安排能力,努力谋求2020年财政收支基本平衡,全力支持国民经济实现“六稳”,保持经济社会稳定。     

李嘉图等价定理的理论回顾和实证研究

1998年以来，我国政府实施了积极的财政政策。这种通过增发国债增加政府支出的积极财政政策能否有效地扩大总需求，即财政政策是否有效，不仅是宏观经济理论的一个核心问题，也是我国今后很长时期内制定宏观经济政策时必须考虑的问题。本文主要对李嘉图等价定理进行回顾性理论分析，并在理论上论证该定理站不住脚，最后通过计量经济分析证明该定理不适用于我国。本文的结论是：税收和国债在我国并非等价，通过增发国债增加政府支出的积极财政政策是有效的。     

政府财政激励、税收征管动机与企业盈余管理——以财政"省直管县"改革为自然实验的研究

政府对企业利润享有征税权,事实上是几乎所有企业的最大的中小股东,因此有动机对企业进行严格的税收征管,进而影响公司治理。本文以1998-2006年中国工业企业为样本,以财政“省直管县”改革为自然实验,从企业盈余管理的角度对此进行了考察。研究发现:财政“省直管县”改革能够显著抑制县辖区内企业的盈余管理行为,并且仅对具有征管权限的企业发挥作用;同时,当县级政府财政状况较差和税基较大时,财政“省直管县”对辖区内企业盈余管理行为的抑制作用更强,表明财政“省直管县”改革能够激励县级政府加强税收征管,进而改善辖区内企业盈余质量。更进一步地,本文还发现财政“省直管县”改革能够抑制企业逃税,提升县级政府财政收入。本文的研究不仅丰富了政府行为影响公司治理方面的文献,同时也为财政“省直管县”如何缓解县级政府财政困难提供了微观证据。