中国农村税费改革的政策效果:基于双重差分模型的估计

本文运用我国7省591个县和县级市1999年至2002年的相关社会经济数据对农村税费改革的政策效果进行系统而严格的实证研究。我们利用税费改革分地区逐步推进的特征,借鉴“双重差分模型”的计量方法估计农村税费改革对农民收入增长所产生的政策影响。研究结果发现,农村税费改革的确对农民收入的增长率有相当大的正面影响,税费改革对样本期间农民纯收入增长的贡献高达40%以上,而且该影响有一定的持续性。这些基本结论能够通过一系列的稳健性检验。本文还对影响税费改革效果的因素进行了一些探讨。

The Policy Effect of Tax-and-Fees Reforms in Rural China: A Difference-in-Differences Estimation

Using a large dataset containing China's 591 counties and county-level cities from 1999-2002,this study conducts a systematic and rigorous empirical analysis of the causal effects of China's rural tax-and-fees reforms on the income growth of the farmers.We employ a difference-in-differences(DID)estimation method,taking advantage of the fact that the reforms were spread gradually from some regions to other ones.We find that the effect of the reforms on the growth rate of farmers' income is statistically and economically significant,which contributes to more than 40 percent of the farmers' annual income growth in the sample period and that such positive effect has lasted more than one year.These basic results are robust to a number of specification tests.Some important factors affecting the reform effects are also examined.