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。     

政府间收入分成与财政收入预算偏离

降低收入决算和预算之间的偏离程度是现代预算制度的基本要求,长期以来,中国政府的收入预算偏离一直处于高位运行状态。本文研究了政府间财政收入分成对收入预算偏离的影响。理论上,财政收入分成的上升会对下级政府产生减小财政压力和加大财政扩张两种截然相反的影响,前者会减少政府的收入预算偏离,而后者则会扩大收入预算偏离。运用市县层面加总的预决算数据,实证分析较为稳健地支持了财政压力机制:财政收入分成降低1个百分点,收入预算偏离会增加0.3个百分点。进一步分析表明,收入分成对预算偏离的影响相比市县级,在省本级层面不显著,并且其对预算偏离的影响会随着经济发展水平的上升而降低。本文研究的现实意义是,政府间收入划分的改革方案要兼顾长期稳定性与财力支持性,这对于降低收入预算偏离、推进现代预算制度建设和国家治理现代化具有重要作用。     

地区竞争、支出责任下移与地方政府债务扩张

地方政府债务过度扩张容易引发系统性经济风险。本文通过一个地方政府举债行为理论模型,分析了政府间共同事权的支出责任下移、竞争性地区的举债行为对地方政府债务规模的影响。在此基础上构建空间面板计量模型,利用279个地级市数据进行回归分析,结果表明:地方政府债务扩张是支出责任下移与标尺竞争机制共同驱动的结果;政府间支出责任下移造成的财政压力是地方政府被动负债的重要原因;地方政府间的标尺竞争使其在举债融资行为上表现为明显的策略模仿;各地区在债务扩张的主因上存在异质性,东部地区政府债务的增加主要是地区间竞争的结果。这意味着化解地方政府债务风险不仅应规范政府间财政支出责任划分,更重要的是完善地方政府的政绩考核体系和违规举债的问责机制。     

Tax Evasion and Auditing in a Federal Economy

This paper analyzes the relation between tax auditing and fiscal equalization in the context of fiscal competition. We incorporate a model of tax evasion by firms into a standard tax competition framework where regional governments use their audit rates as a strategic instrument to engage in fiscal competition. We compare the region’s choice of audit policies for three different cases: A scenario of unconfined competition without interregional transfers, a scenario with a gross revenue equalization (GRS) scheme and finally, a scenario with net revenue sharing (NRS), where not only the revenues from taxation but also the regions auditing costs are shared. Without regional transfers, fiscal competition leads to audit rates which are inefficiently low for revenue-maximizing governments. While in general GRS aggravates the inefficiency, NRS makes the decentralized choice of auditing policies more efficient.JEL Code: H26, H71, H77     

Fiscal Policy Reforms in a Global Economy

Two countries are populated by workers and capitalists. Their governments collect taxes to finance productive expenditure and income redistribution. The share of income redistributed defines the size of the welfare state. Although both groups benefit from an abolition of the welfare state in the long run, the optimal fiscal policy in autarky can be characterized by maintaining a large welfare state since transfer cuts would induce transitional losses. Starting in such a position of policy inertia free trade and capital mobility is introduced. Fiscal policy competition leads to a reduction of tax rates and a relative increase of productive expenditure. If both countries coordinate their fiscal policy the reduction of taxes and income transfers is less pronounced. Quantitative effects of increasing globalization are assessed in a calibrated model for an average Europe G-4 country and the United States.     

转移支付与地方政府支出规模膨胀——基于中国预算制度的一个实证解释

自2000年以来,为了缩小地区间差距和促进基本公共服务均等化,我国的财政转移支付规模迅速扩大。本文利用1994-2015年省级年度数据发现,地方政府获得的一般性转移支付和专项转移支付每增加1元,年度一般预算财政支出将分别增加1.61元和2.12元,远远超过本地财政收入增加所产生的影响。这也意味着财政转移支付在我国产生了较大的“粘蝇纸效应”。在2010年提前下达固定数额转移支付指标改革后,一般性转移支付的“粘蝇纸效应”有所下降。使用分月数据的回归结果显示,“年底突击花钱”对专项转移支付“粘蝇纸效应”的贡献最大。本文的研究表明,转移支付引发的地方财政收入的不确定性、转移支付下拨时滞以及刚性的年度预算平衡制度是导致我国地方政府支出规模膨胀的重要原因。本文的研究结论意味着,中央应进一步规范转移支付制度、扩大提前下达转移支付指标的范围、加快转移支付的拨付进度、建立和完善跨年度预算平衡机制、积极防范转移支付的道德风险问题。地方各级政府应该加强预算执行管理,强化预算约束力。     

Fiscal Reconstruction and Local Government Financing

This paper investigates the dynamic properties of intergovernmental financing during a fiscal reconstruction process by analyzing the dynamic game among local governments, which operates with soft budget constraints because of concessionary region-specific transfers from a central government. The existence of intergovernmental transfers induces the free-riding behavior of local governments, thereby bringing considerable deficits to the central government. Raising local and/or national taxes is desirable for fiscal reconstruction, but is unable to attain the Pareto-efficient fiscal reconstruction. Taxes on lobbying activities, combined with uniform transfers, induce earlier concession and can attain the Pareto-efficient outcome in the long run.     

Intergovernmental Fiscal Arrangements and Provincial Consumption Risk Sharing in China

This paper utilizes a panel data set on two major fiscal reforms in China—the fiscal contract system (FCS) in 1980-93 and the tax-sharing system (TSS) after 1994—to examine how the various aspects of intergovernmental fiscal arrangement affect the ability of the fiscal system to facilitate risk sharing. The high revenue decentralization and the proliferation of extrabudgetary revenue items in the FCS generally weakened the central government's ability to support interprovincial risk sharing. This situation was reversed in the TSS period. In addition, the effect of central-to-local transfer (transfer-in) and local-to-central transfer (transfer-out) on risk sharing was asymmetric in the sense that transfer-out enhances risk sharing but transfer-in does not.     

税费替代:增值税减税、非税收入征管与企业投资

通过减税促进企业投资和提振宏观经济是近年来中国税收制度改革的重要目标,但减税政策的实际效果却存在争议。本文利用2009年增值税转型改革,研究了减税对地方政府税费收入和企业非税负担的影响,从税费替代的角度揭示非税负担变动如何影响企业固定资产投资。研究发现:(1)增值税转型在减税的同时提高了地方政府非税收入并加重了企业非税负担,地方财政收入受增值税转型冲击越大,企业非税负担上升越明显。(2)上述应主要体现在小型、微型和民营企业上,大中型、非民营企业的非税负担未发生明显变化。(3)非税负担上升会显著抑制小型、微型和民营企业的固定资产投资,促使小型微型和民营企业通过持有更多现金和减少流动性负债来应对税费负担不确定性。本文有助于理解减税政策对小型微型和民营企业非税负担的溢出效应及其影响,为通过减税降费促进投资和提振经济提供经验支撑。     

The assignment and division of the tax base in a system of hierarchical governments

Vertical externalities, changes in one level of government’s policies that affect the budget of another level of government, may lead to non-optimal government policies. These externalities are associated with tax bases that are shared or “co-occupied” by two levels of government. Here I consider whether co-occupancy of tax bases is desirable. I examine the optimal extent of the tax bases of a lower level of government (local) and a higher level (state). I find that it is optimal to have co-occupancy in the absence of other corrective policies if commodities in the tax bases are substitutes. Further, if the state government can differentially tax the co-occupied segment of the tax base and the segment it alone taxes it will obtain the (second-best) outcome obtained with other policy instruments such as intergovernmental grants.     

应对新冠肺炎疫情的财税政策选择

新冠肺炎疫情从武汉向全国的蔓延,对宏观经济、相关行业和经济活动主体都产生了严重影响.既有财税政策主要作用于鼓励防护救治、增加物资供应、促进公益捐赠和激励复工复产等方面,但在税收优惠政策的适用范围、政府与社会成员在税收领域的协商互动以及政府间事权与支出责任的划分等方面仍存在局限.未来的改革应进一步调整财政支出结构,提高财政资金使用效率,完善税收优惠政策,明确社会成员个体的权利以及各级政府的财政事权与支出责任.     

Fiscal Externalities and Efficient Transfers in a Federation

This paper investigates properties of the second best allocation in a fiscal federal system in which both federal tax and intergovernmental grants are involved and the taxation is distortionary. Also, optimal federal grants and tax policies in a decentralized fiscal system are examined. Our major findings are: (i) the second best does not require the equalization of marginal cost of public funds across regions in a conventional form; (ii) matching grants based on either the local tax rates or tax revenues should be introduced to internalize the tax externality; and (iii) once lump-sum and matching grants are optimized, federal tax policy becomes redundant so the optimal fiscal gap is indeterminate.     

Local fiscal distress and investment efficiency of local SOEs

In this paper, we use A-share listed firms between 2002 and 2010 to investigate the relationship between local fiscal distress and the investment efficiency of local SOEs, along with the effect of corporate tax payments on this relationship. We find a positive relationship between the extent of local SOEs' overinvestment and the fiscal distress of the corresponding local government where the enterprise and this relationship become stronger for firms that pay fewer taxes. The pattern of underinvestment among local SOEs was in contrast,and these relationships do not exist for non-SOEs or central SOEs. Moreover,we find that expanding a firm's investment scale leads to an increase in total taxes paid, including income and turnover taxes, which further result in more local fiscal revenue. Overall, we conclude that local governments have an incentive to increase fiscal revenue when faced with fiscal distress by raising the investment scale of local SOEs and that the incentives and effects of such interventions appear to be stronger among firms that contribute less to local fiscal revenue.ó 2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China Journal of Accounting Research. Founded by Sun Yat-sen University and City University of Hong Kong.     

我国现行环境税费的环保效果:基于地方政府视角的分析

财政联邦主义理论告诉我们,地方财政行为可能会影响环境政策的执行,在财政分权的情况下,可能出现地方政府为了促进经济增长和增加税收收入而采取放松环境质量管理的策略行为,导致"竞争到底"现象的出现。基于这一理论假设,从地方政府的角度,建立计量经济模型对我国现行环境税费的环保效果进行实证检验,得出如下结论:我国应积极推行绿色GDP等考核指标;明晰中央政府和地方政府各自的环保责任;中央政府应规范地方政府之间的竞争,等等。     

Designing domestic institutions for international monetary policy cooperation: A Utopia?

In a wide variety of international macroeconomic models monetary policy cooperation is optimal, non-cooperative policies are inefficient, but optimal policies can be attained non-cooperatively by optimal design of domestic institutions/contracts. We show that given endogenous institutional design, inefficiencies of non-cooperation cannot and will not be eliminated. We model the delegation stage explicitly and show that subgame perfect, credible contracts (chosen by governments based on individual rationality) are non-zero, but are different from optimal contracts and hence lead to inefficient equilibria. Optimal contracts require cooperation at the delegation stage, which is inconsistent with the advocated non-cooperative nature of the solution. A general solution method for credible contracts and an example from international monetary policy cooperation are considered. Our results feature delegation as an equilibrium phenomenon, explain inefficiencies of existing delegation schemes and hint to a potentially stronger role for supranational authorities in international policy coordination.     

Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability

We examine whether the U.S. and German state governments pursue sustainable fiscal policies taking into account fiscal transfers. Using panel data techniques we investigate whether the debt‐to‐GDP ratio had a positive influence on the primary surplus (Bohn model). We show that including/excluding fiscal transfers changes the results. If fiscal transfers are not included in the primary surplus, the test results do not indicate that the U.S. and German state governments pursued sustainable fiscal policies. Our results also suggest that fiscal transfers were positively related to debt. These findings indicate that intergovernmental transfers have implicitly subsidized debts.     

Taxation, Migration, and Pollution

This paper analyzes optimal fiscal, environmental and immigration policy for a single jurisdiction. In the presence of immigration quotas, taxes on the output of externality-producing industries should be higher than indicated by the standard rule for Pigovian corrective taxation. Immigration quotas are not optimal if fiscal instruments can be used to control immigration, and relaxation of immigration quotas generally increases domestic welfare. If optimal taxes are imposed on immigrants, no immigration quota should be imposed, and a version of the traditional Pigovian rule characterizes optimal taxation of domestic externalities. If production in the immigrants' country of origin causes trans-boundary spillovers, domestic welfare can be improved by lighter taxation of immigrants or by further relaxation of immigration quotas. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The welfare comparison of corrective ad valorem and unit taxes under monopolistic competition

The ad valorem versus unit tax debate has traditionally emphasized tax yield. On this criterion, ad valorem taxes outperform unit taxes in terms of welfare for a wide range of imperfect competition settings including Dixit–Stiglitz monopolistic competition. However, in a number of policy fields such as environmental, health, and trade economics, policy makers use taxes to reduce the production/consumption volume in an industry, i.e., to correct an externality rather than to improve tax yield. This paper compares the two tax instruments with respect to equal corrective effect in a Dixit–Stiglitz setting with love of variety, entry, exit, and redistribution of tax revenues. We find that unit taxes lead to more firms in the industry, less output per firm, less tax revenue, but higher welfare compared to ad valorem taxes.      

地方政府财政压力与银行信贷资源配置效率--基于我国城市商业银行的研究证据北大核心

基于2005-2015年我国城市商业银行的样本,本文研究省级地方政府财政压力是否对商业银行信贷资金投向和信贷资源配置效率产生影响。研究发现,地方政府财政压力是影响城市商业银行信贷资源配置的重要因素。具体而言,省级地方政府的财政压力越大,省内城市商业银行投向地方国有经济部门的贷款比率越高。然而,信贷资源更多投向地方国有经济部门的银行有更高的不良贷款率和更差的会计业绩。进一步研究发现,在财政压力大的省份,城市商业银行投向地方国有经济部门的贷款比率越高,则贷款拨备率越低,这表明城市商业银行会通过盈余管理行为来应对监管压力。本文研究结论对商业银行监管以及防范化解金融风险有重要启示。     

国家产业政策、地方政府行为与实际税率——理论分析和经验证据

本文从地方政府行为的角度研究国家产业政策对于企业实际税率的影响。理论分析表明,产业政策引致重点扶持行业资本回报率增加,使得地方政府面临降税引资和增税增收的权衡;此时,地方政府将会降低产业政策重点鼓励行业的实际税率。借助国家“五年规划”重点行业的划分度量国家产业政策,我们对理论假说进行了实证检验。研究发现,政策鼓励显著降低了相应行业的实际税率水平;并且地方政府财政收入水平越高,实际税率下降幅度越大;机制分析表明这可能是通过降低对鼓励行业的征税努力的方式实现的。分企业类型研究发现,实际税率的降低主要存在于私营企业而非地方国有企业和中央企业。上述发现对于理解地方政府行为在产业政策中的作用以及产业、财政政策协调有重要意义。