Fiscal decentralization and multinational firms’ ownership: evidence from China

China’s fiscal decentralization increases the incentive for local governments to maintain economic prosperity and improve institutional environments for multinational firms. This study investigates the impact of fiscal decentralization on the ownership shares of multinational firms in China. Multinational firms located in regions with higher degrees of fiscal decentralization are found to own larger shares of their foreign subsidiaries. This result is consistent under various robustness checks, including instrumental variables estimations. The finding suggests that multinational firms respond to local fiscal decentralization by increasing their participation in investment. This study therefore provides additional evidence for the beneficial effect of fiscal decentralization on China’s economic growth by highlighting the risk-mitigating role of fiscal decentralization.     

A NEW DIRECTION IN WORLD BANK URBAN LENDING TO LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES*

The urban development loans of the World Bank are acquiring a regional rather than a city-specific orientation in several countries, especially in Latin America. These broader operations often dovetail national trends of decentralization in the political, administrative and fiscal structures. Given the current constraints of the central governments in meeting the growing demands of urbanization through incremental top-down grants, these operations aim at a gradual substitution of unrequited transfers with long-term loans to regional and local governments. The paper reviews the implications of this approach in terms of distribution and efficiency and suggests that it may be more suitable in countries undergoing economic adjustment. The objective is to sustain motivation in fiscal effort and resource mobilization at the city level, and possibly establish a different rationale for external credit supporting local infrastructure and service improvements.     

Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth

This paper surveys the literature on fiscal policy and economic growth. We present a unifying framework for the analysis of long run growth implications of government expenditures and revenues. We find that several tax rates and expenditure categories exhibit a direct impact on the growth rate of the economy. In a creative synthesis we have assigned the relevant literature to the twelve introduced policy variables. Due to the equivalence of some policy variables we are left with six degrees of freedom, where we need four to internalize the model's intrinsic externalities, leaving two instruments to conduct short run fiscal policy.     

金融分权对企业投资效率的影响

本文基于金融分权的内涵,分析金融分权对企业投资效率的影响机制,并利用2003—2015年的上市公司数据,估算企业投资效率,实证检验金融分权对企业投资效率的影响。结果表明,金融分权降低了企业投资效率,并主要体现为投资过度;财政分权加剧了金融分权对企业投资效率的负效应。进一步研究发现,相对于国有企业而言,金融分权对非国有企业投资效率的负效应较小。中介效应检验表明,金融分权通过影响企业银行信贷和代理成本来降低企业投资效率。本文的政策含义是：理顺中央和地方财政关系,降低地方政府对金融资源的竞争性需求;完善地方政府官员考核机制,弱化地方政府参与金融竞争的激励;完善金融分权,既要求政府在保证金融市场稳定、不发生系统性风险的前提下应向市场逐步分权,又要求清晰界定中央政府与地方政府各自的监管权限,明确双方的救助责任。     

Fiscal decentralization under free mobility

In this paper it is shown that, under the proper convexity assumption, any efficient allocation of an economy subdivided into locationally separated regions can be sustained by means of fiscal decentralization with profit maximizing local governments. For that to be true, however, a system of intergovernmental grants is needed. Without such grants, fiscal decentralization and Tiebout equilibria are closely related concepts. Since a Tiebout equilibrium generally fails to exist [Bewley (1981)], these grants play an important role not only for redistribution but, in the first place, to make fiscal decentralization a feasible allocation mechanism.     

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.     

地方政府政绩诉求、政府控制与国有企业税负

以我国2004—2012年A股非金融类地方国有上市公司为研究样本,在区分了省级政府与市级政府控制的基础上,实证检验了各级地方政府不同的政绩诉求对国有企业控制程度是否存在差异及该控制程度对国有企业税负的影响。研究发现：地方政府的政绩诉求（包括财政盈余、相对经济增长率、失业率等）显著影响地方政府对国有企业的控制程度,且省级政府更注重相对经济增长率及失业率,市级政府更关注财政盈余水平;三个政绩诉求中相对经济增长率对政府控制的影响最为显著;地方政府对国有企业的控制程度与企业税负显著正相关;与省级政府相比,市级政府控制的国有企业税负更重。这表明,增加地方国有企业税负是市级地方政府实现其政绩诉求的重要途径。     

The Puzzle of Firm Performance in China: An Institutional Explanation

China has achieved phenomenal economic growth in an institutional environment that defies conventional economic rationales. Researchers offer different theories to explain this puzzle. But so far, due to the lack of data, little effort has been made to test these theories at the firm level. We develop a framework of endogenous institutional change to explain this puzzle and we test our framework with firm-level data. We argue that the decentralization from the central to the local governments and from government to firms are the driving forces behind China's institutional changes that have shaped the roles of government and market, which in turn significantly affect firm performance. We then submit our theory to a vigorous empirical test using data from China's industrial census, covering all 2000 counties and over 500 manufacturing industries. The test shows that two results of decentralization, the involvement of low-level governments in business and the process of privatization, positively affect firm performance.     

中国财政分权与地方基础设施供给的实证分析

在我国,自上而下的政绩考核机制激励着地方追求短期经济增长,导致其在基础设施投资上拥有很高的热情。文章实证分析了该结论,并用模型论证经济增长、城市化和财政分权等因素是导致地方基本建设支出增长的主要原因。     

The Henry George Theorem in a second-best world

The Henry George Theorem (HGT) states that, in first-best economies, the fiscal surplus of a city government that finances the Pigouvian subsidies for agglomeration externalities and the costs of local public goods by a 100% tax on land is zero at optimal city sizes. We extend the HGT to distorted economies where product differentiation and increasing returns are the sources of agglomeration economies and city governments levy property taxes. Without relying on specific functional forms, we derive a second-best HGT that relates the fiscal surplus to the excess burden expressed as an extended Harberger formula.     

中国财政分权与地方基础设施供给的实证分析

在我国,自上而下的政绩考核机制激励着地方追求短期经济增长,导致其在基础设施投资上拥有很高的热情。文章实证分析了该结论,并用模型论证经济增长、城市化和财政分权等因素是导致地方基本建设支出增长的主要原因。     

金融科技能影响金融分权吗? ——来自金融科技信贷的证据

金融科技正在变革全球金融体系、鼎新世界金融格局。那么，金融科技在改变中国金融业格局的同时，是否会影响中国中央和地方之间的金融分权呢？本文在理论分析的基础上，使用2010—2018年中国31个省级区域的面板数据进行实证检验，结果表明金融科技降低了地方政府的金融分权水平。进一步讨论发现：金融科技对金融分权的抑制效应受到财政分权和城镇化率影响，财政分权越大的地区，金融科技对金融分权的抑制效应越明显；城镇化率越高的地区，金融科技对金融分权的抑制效应越小；在中国区域经济发展不平衡的现实背景下，金融科技对金融分权的抑制作用在金融发展欠发达地区比在较发达地区更强。     

How economic integration affects the vertical structure of the public sector

This paper investigates the impact of economic integration on the vertical structure of the public sector within a country. To tackle this issue we set up a model of fiscal federalism, where economic integration is assumed to affect central government tax revenues. The main findings are that when an increase of the impact of economic integration brings about a reduction in central government tax revenues, under certain conditions: (a) it reduces central government expenditure; (b) it reduces general government expenditure; (c) it increases local taxation; (d) it increases the degree of public sector decentralization. Quite interestingly, these results are consistent with different patterns of local public spending and grants to local government.     

支持廉租房建设的财税政策选择

"十二五"期间,继续加强廉租房建设、解决低收入者的住房问题依然是摆在各级政府面前的一个重要的经济问题和社会政治问题。财政税收政策作为一种灵活、有效和重要的政策措施,其政策设计和有效运转,对廉租房建设有着重要作用。本文从理论上阐述了政府介入廉租房领域的必要性和合理性,明确了支持廉租房建设可采取的财税政策工具。对我国现阶段廉租房建设面临的诸如地方政府缺乏积极性、廉租房建设资金不足、廉租房供求矛盾突出以及廉租房分配效率低下等困境进行了系统分析。在此基础上,有针对性地提出了进一步支持廉租房建设的财税策略选择。     

Government debt and fiscal execution efficiency

Governments have used deficit policies in recent years, yet many still face fiscal debt problems. Thus, this research uses Range Directional Measure Dynamic Directional Distance Function model with negative data to explore the financial efficiency of local governments in Taiwan from 2011 to 2018. This article has three major contributions: (1) The research uses RDM Dynamic DDF model with negative data to solve the problem of negative values on input and output data and uses dynamic models to make up for the deficiencies of past research. (2) Due to the differences in regions, local governments have different fiscal budgets. Therefore, this article uses the Wilcoxon Test to explore the efficiency differences of local governments in different regions. (3) This article analyzes the impact of central subsidies and government deficits (debts) of local governments on fiscal efficiency, and discusses the efficiency of government fiscal execution. The results are as follows. (1) Seven counties and cities with the best efficiency, and seven local governments with poor efficiency. (2) The fiscal performances of outlying islands and eastern local governments are better than those of western local governments. (3) Kaohsiung City has the highest accumulated debt and Tainan City exhibits poor financial performance.     

Traffic externalities in cities: The economics of speed bumps,low emission zones and city bypasses

This paper considers various policy measures that governments can use to reduce traffic externalities in cities. Unlike much of the available literature that emphasized congestion, we focus on measures that reduce pollution, noise and some accident risks. These measures include noise barriers, speed bumps, traffic lights, tolls, emission standards, low emission zones, and bypass capacity to guide traffic around the city center. Using a simple model that distinguishes local and through traffic, we study the optimal use of these instruments by an urban government that cares for the welfare of its residents, and we compare the results with those preferred by a federal authority that also takes into account the welfare of road users from outside the city. Our results include the following. First, compared to the federal social optimum, we show that the city government will over-invest in externality-reducing infrastructure whenever this infrastructure increases the generalized cost of through traffic. We can therefore expect an excessive number of speed bumps and traffic lights, but the right investment in noise barriers. Second, when implementing low emission zones, the urban government will set both the fee for non-compliance and the emission standard at a more stringent level than the federal government. Moreover, at sufficiently high levels of through traffic the urban government will prefer imposing a toll instead of implementing a low emission zone. Third, whatever the tolling instruments in place, the city will always underinvest in bypass capacity. Finally, if it can toll all roads but is forced to invest all bypass toll revenue in the bypass, it will never invest in bypass capacity. Although the paper focuses on non-congestion externalities, most insights also hold in the presence of congestion.     

日本地方政府债券风险控制制度及其启示

日本地方政府债券几乎没有违约事件,其风险基本为零。这得益于其有效的风险控制制度。日本地方政府债券风险控制制度包括中央政府的"隐含担保"制度、审查和控制制度以及财务控制制度,具有以下几个特性:典型的行政控制、弱化的市场机制,以及零违约风险下的低经济福利。这给予中国有三大启示。正式制度是控制地方政府债券风险的关键;建立多层次风险管理制度;风险管理制度要顺应财政体制,即地方政府债券风险管理制度应"以民为本"、彻底的财政分权并非地方政府债券风险管理制度的必然基础。     

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.     

浅谈银行如何有效防范地方政府融资风险

在94年国家进行分税制改革之后,财政收入向中央政府集中,这加剧了各地方政府事权与财权不平衡的局面,政府融资平台为地方政府拓宽了融资渠道。进入2008以来,受国际金融危机的影响,我国实施了宽松的货币政策和积极的财政政策,推动了各地方政府融资平台飞速发展,在应对金融危机方面起到了重要作用。但是地方政府融资债务疯狂增长下其隐藏的风险已经逐渐凸显出来,值得我们关注。本文从银行的角度浅析了银行如何防范来自地方政府融资的风险。     

Decentralization and the Decline of the Central City: A Case Study of Demographic and Economic Change in Bridgeport, Conn.

A bstract . The fiscal crisis of particular central cities has been primarily caused by social and economic decentralization within metropolitan regions. This hypothesis is examined through a case study of the Bridgeport, Connecticut metropolitan region. Middle and upper income groups have moved from the central city of Bridgeport to its suburbs while the poor remain. Business and industry have also decentralized. These factors weaken the capacity of the central city to generate sufficient revenue from its declining share of the region's taxable resources. The central city must fund a wide range of services and faces, as all local governments do, increased costs. Because of these fundamental social and economic changes , the central city cannot meet its service commitments. Unless the existing system of public finance is altered, continued decline is inevitable.