财政分权与地方政府支出结构偏向——基于中国省级面板数据的研究

在上级政府对下级政府拥有人事任免权，并以GDP的增长作为考核标准的政治体制下，我国的财政支出分权导致地方政府偏好于经济建设支出和除文教科卫之外的其他部门事业费的支出，而最能反映一个地区居民需求的科教文卫支出则无疑被忽视，甚至被其他支出所挤占。收入分配所产生的激励作用在经济建设的投入上，也是最明显，但它似乎并不能降低行政管理费用的支出，而且，倾向于地方政府的收入分配也不能使地方政府在支出中将更多的部分用于科教文卫。     

Efficiency and equity consequences of decentralized government: An application to Spain

Spain's federal system of government has evolved over the last fifteen years in the wake of Franco's centralized system of government. The Autonomias, or state-level governments, were formed from the provinces during the late 1970s and early 1980s and provide the basis for a new federal structure of government. While great strides have been made in decentralizing government, certain features retain a decidedly centralized structure. In particular, the central government determines the size of the budget of the Autonomias, leaving little room for the decentralized governments to satisfy the possibly diverse preferences of their respective citizenries. This paper investigates the equity and efficiency consequences of the current system relative to a system with decentralized revenue sources.     

Introduction: Fiscal Aspects of Evolving Federations

There has been a resurgence of interest, in many parts of the world, in problems of multilevel government finance. Recent and ongoing political and economic developments raise questions about the role of the nation, subnational governments, and supranational public authorities in the provision and financing of public-sector programs. This paper presents an overview of these developments that may assist in understanding some of the motivation behind the articles presented in this special issue and in appreciating some of their potential applications. The articles are briefly summarized, and some issues that remain on the agenda for future research are identified.     

基于财政分权视角的低碳城市建设研究

低碳城市建设需要新的视角、新的思路.长期以来,人们一直把建设低碳城市作为政府不可推卸的责任.然而大多数与此相关的政策建议,要么只是直接提出问题的严峻性和采取行动的必要性;要么忽视各个级次政府对于实现低碳城市建设目标的作用,只讲责任而不顾能力和激励;要么把能力和激励问题视作理所当然的前提,忽视激励机制的重要性.这样的讨论是片面的、不完整的,缺乏有针对性的建议.文章从多级次政府的现实出发,说明财政分权对于低碳城市建设的重要性,深入分析了政治激励与财政激励对低碳城市建设的巨大影响,并给出了具体的对策建议.     

The Political Economy of Chinese “Federalism”: New Analytical Directions

Abstract

Decentralized politico-administrative structures may be dissected and assessed by employing a variety of conceptual tools. In the case of China, researchers have displayed a distinct preference for operating within a framework grounded in political sociology. Substantial insights have been generated in the process, but it may be argued, and empirically demonstrated, that a complementary approach, seeking inspiration from political economy, may shed additional light on the functioning of the Chinese quasi-federal system.     

Coping with Autonomy

Abstract

The question examined in this article is how decentralization of power and responsibilities in public administration affects the interaction between bureaucrats and politicians. Three factors were identified as potential predictors: executive authority; the nature of administrative decision making; and the nature of the relationship between bureaucrats and union officials. Data were collected through a survey administered to ninety-eight senior bureaucrats at the county level in Norway. Correlation and hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the character of the relationship between bureaucrats and union officials had the greatest impact on the interaction between bureaucrats and politicians. The more trustful the relationship, the less the interaction, while the stronger the dependency of bureaucrats on unions, the more intensive the interaction. Decision making that involves negotiations increased interaction, as did the bureaucrats' perception of themselves as clearly superior to their staff – as opposed to a perception of themselves as being in an advisory position.     

For Better or for Worse? Local Impacts of the Decentralization of Indonesia’s Forest Sector

This paper quantifies the local impacts of mechanized logging on forest-dependent communities in Indonesia, before and after decentralization. A conceptual framework incorporates financial, social, enforcement, rent-seeking, and environmental impacts. Using data from 60 communities in East Kalimantan, the empirical results suggest that significantly more households received financial and in-kind benefits after decentralization compared to before. Many communities engaged in self-enforcement activities against firms both before and after decentralization. Post-decentralization, a significantly higher proportion of households perceived community forest ownership. There were few significant differences in perceived environmental impacts. Little evidence exists of a post-decentralization trade-off between environmental and financial contractual provisions.     

Cointegration and causality in international agricultural economics research

A review of literature on applications of Granger causality to problems in international agricultural economics research is summarized. The review relates to cointegration theory, and it identifies the areas where recent econometric developments may be of value. Testing procedures are outlined, and a discussion is provided on questions such as non-stationarity and asymptotic distribution of non-causality tests, the relationship between cointegration and causation, the relative merits of various testing procedures, and concerns about testing bivariate causality in higher dimensional models. Finally, a recent econometric development is discussed and its future use in applied research is discussed.     

Externalities do not necessarily require larger message spaces for realizing pareto-efficient allocations

Classes of economies with consumption externalities and decisive, nonwasteful, and informationally decentralized allocation mechanisms on classes including these classes of economies are constructed. The informational size of the message spaces is shown to be minimal among the message spaces used by any allocation mechanisms with the same properties on the same class of economies. The message spaces are shown to be as large as n(l- 1)n(\ell - 1) -dimensional Euclidean space, where n is the number of economic agents and l\ell is the number of commodities. The presence of consumption externalities does not necessarily require larger message spaces for realizing Pareto-efficiency.