财政分权与经济增长可持续性——基于情势转换与聚类视角的分析

经济增长可持续性不仅取决于增长速度还取决于增长稳定性。本文利用我国245个地级市1978—2014年间面板数据和马尔科夫情势转换聚类面板模型,从情势转换与聚类视角考察了地级市经济增长动态特征,识别出不同的动态增长模式及其可持续性,进而剖析了财政分权的影响。研究表明,地级市经济增长呈现出三种动态增长模式,这三种模式在平均增速、增长状态及其持续期、增长波动性进而在增长可持续性方面存在明显差异。支出分权显著增加了地级市归属为低增长、高波动模式的概率,不利于经济可持续增长,而在1994年分税制改革后则产生了较积极的作用。收入分权总体有利于增强经济增长可持续性,1994年分税制改革后,受地方纵向财政失衡加剧的不利影响,这一积极作用有所减弱。增加地方财政自给度(即增加地方收支分权匹配度、减小地方纵向财政失衡)有利于增强经济增长可持续性,这一作用在1994年分税制改革后表现得更为突出。本文研究结论对优化完善财税体制以有效促进经济可持续增长具有良好启示。

Fiscal Decentralization and Growth Sustainability: An Analysis from the Markov Regime-Switching Clustering Perspective

Maintaining sustainable economic growth is a severe challenge facing policymakers in China. Obviously, the sustainability of growth is determined not only by growth rates, but also by growth stability. A typical fact related to China's economic growth that cannot be ignored is that the growth dynamics of regional economies exhibit rather substantial differences. Focusing only on economic growth rates may cause one to ignore this important fact and its inherent logical and theoretical implications. Meanwhile, fiscal system reforms with the central theme of “decentralization of power and transfer of profits” are generally considered one of the most important institutional changes since China's reforms and the opening up of its markets, and it is an important perspective to deeply understand China's economic sustainability. However, few studies explore the effects of fiscal decentralization on both economic growth and economic stability, and thus, on growth sustainability, using a relatively unified analytical framework. Studies on the characteristics of China's sub-provincial regional economic growth dynamics and the effects of fiscal decentralization on these dynamics are also relatively inadequate.This paper aims to comprehensively analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on regional growth dynamics and, thus, on the sustainability of growth in China. Specifically, based on a panel dataset of 245 prefecture-level cities in China for the period from 1978 to 2014, we first study the dynamic characteristics of economic growth in these prefecture-level cities by using a Markov regime-switching clustering model from the perspective of regime switching and clustering; identifies different dynamic growth patterns; and reveals their differences in average growth rates, growth states and duration, growth volatility, and, ultimately, growth sustainability. Then, we use the logit panel model to investigate the effects of fiscal decentralization on growth sustainability from three dimensions: impact of fiscal decentralization on the belonging probabilities of growth modes, on the differences in growth states across growth modes, and on the occurrence probability of high growth states within each growth mode.We find that the growth dynamics of prefecture-level cities in China present three typical modes that differ significantly in terms of average growth rates, duration of growth states, growth volatility and, thus, their sustainability. Expenditure decentralization significantly increases the prefectural cities' probabilities of being clustered into the low-growth-and-high-volatility growth mode and, thus, reduces the sustainability of economic growth. However, it has relatively positive effects on the sustainability of economic growth after the reform of the tax-sharing system in 1994. Revenue decentralization is beneficial for the sustainability of economic growth overall, but after the tax-sharing system reform, its positive impacts are weakened due to increasing vertical fiscal imbalance. We also find that increasing fiscal self-capacity enhances the sustainability of economic growth.The above findings provide important insights for optimizing and improving the fiscal system to effectively promote sustainable economic growth in China. Although the decentralization of fiscal expenditure has played a positive role in enhancing the sustainability of economic growth after the reform of the tax-sharing system in 1994, it remains necessary to realize that the current expenditures undertaken by local governments in China are heavy, that the mismatch between revenue and expenditure responsibilities is growing, and that the local vertical fiscal imbalance is increasingly adversely affecting the sustainability of economic growth. Therefore, in the future, China should appropriately reduce the expenditure responsibilities of local governments and increase their autonomy over fiscal revenues to build a fiscal system that improves the match between revenue and expenditure responsibilities and provides a clearer arrangement of powers and responsibilities.Compared with existing studies, the main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, from a relatively new perspective, namely the Markov regime-switching and clustering view, this paper incorporates economic growth and economic volatility into a relatively unified analytical framework. Second, the application of the Markov regime-switching and clustering model is conducive not only to endogenously identify different nonlinear dynamic growth patterns of prefecture-level cities and better reveal the multidimensional differences in the growth sustainability of these dynamic growth modes, but also to facilitate a multifaceted analysis of the influences of fiscal decentralization. Finally, by using long panel data of China's prefecture-level cities spanning nearly 40 years (1978-2014), this paper enriches research on the dynamic mechanisms of China's regional economic growth.