地方政府财政支出结构影响农村居民消费的实证研究

地方政府财政支出可划分为投资性支出、消费性支出和福利性支出.通过构建适合我国农村居民消费特征的理论模型,运用1995-2009年省际面板数据,实证检验地方政府财政支出对农村居民消费的影响.结果显示:政府投资性支出和福利性支出对农村居民消费具有正向促进作用,政府消费性支出对农村居民消费则具有负向抑制作用.因此,政府应该进一步优化财政支出结构来促进农村居民消费的增长.     

Government Spending and Taxation in Democracies and Autocracies

The paper develops a theoretical rationale for a non-linear relationship between the level of democracy and government spending. A model is presented showing why and how political participation influences the spending behavior of opportunistic governments that can choose an optimal combination of rents and public goods to attract political support. If the level of democracy remains low, governments rationally prefer rents as an instrument to assure political support. With increasing democratic participation, however, rents become an increasingly expensive (per unit of political support) instrument while the provision of public goods becomes more and more efficient in ensuring the incumbent government's survival in power. As a consequence, an increase in democracy, which drives a country from a pure autocracy to a semi-participatory system, tends to reduce government spending, while an increase in political participation from a semi-participatory country to a full democracy tends to raise the size of the public sector.     

政绩推动、政治关联与民营企业投资扩张

地方政府以行政方式推动民营企业投资扩张是造成投资过度和产能过剩的重要原因。以2004-2011年民营上市公司为样本,本文实证分析了地市级政府面临的政绩压力对民营企业投资的影响,并重点考察了政治关联在其中的作用以及政绩压力对信贷资源配置的影响。研究发现,控制地区固定效应后,地方政府政绩压力影响辖内民营企业投资,政绩压力特别是经济增长压力越大时,辖内民营企业过度投资越严重。政治关联弱化了政绩压力对民营企业投资的推动作用,地方政府面临较大的政绩压力特别是经济增长压力时,政治关联民营企业过度投资程度相对较低。进一步研究还发现,地方性政治关联对政绩压力推动民营企业投资扩张的弱化作用更为显著。政绩压力特别是经济增长压力增大时,地方政府同样有着强烈的动机推动非管制行业民营企业扩张投资。信贷资源在政绩压力影响政治关联民营企业投资行为方面扮演了重要角色。本文的相关结论对于理解地方政府推动企业投资扩张造成产能过剩以及政治关联的经济后果具有一定的参考价值。     

A political foundation of public investment and welfare spending

This paper develops a political economy model to examine the implications of political selection under an authoritarian regime. We formalize the fiscal policy choice of local governments, focusing on two political selection mechanisms and their implications for public investment and welfare spending. A growth-oriented promotion system induces local officials to increase public investment, which may increase output but crowd out welfare transfers. This mimics the recent investment-driven growth in China and relatively low effort to tackle high inequality. Under a broader incentive structure, we show that it is possible for an authoritarian regime to attain the social welfare of a democracy.     

对地方政府保障房支出缺口的估计——来自江苏省的证据

估计地方政府保障房实际支出与合理支出之间缺口的大小对于判断政府供给责任以及制定保障房建设规划具有非常重要的意义。为此,本文运用IMF较为齐全的40个国家(地区)2005-2007年的面板数据,估计了地方政府保障房的合理支出值,利用《2009年江苏省住房保障目标任务完成情况表》估算了江苏各市(县)政府保障房的实际支出值,以江苏各市(县)为例测算地方政府保障房支出缺口。估计结果表明,几乎所有地方政府均存在保障房支出的正缺口。经济发展水平居中且受到上级政府监管力度不大的苏中地区政府保障房支出缺口相对较大,苏南和苏北地区缺口相对较小。深化经济体制改革与加大监管力度双管齐下、约束地方政府非公共服务行为,有利于促使保障房的实际支出值等于或者接近合理支出值,从而缩小地方政府的保障房支出缺口。     

Does fiscal decentralization affect local governments' strategic behaviours? Evidence from South Korea

Local governments tend to show strategic behaviours when making their spending decisions. However, few studies have examined strategic behaviours when promoting fiscal decentralization. Thus, this study empirically examines the presence of strategic interactions in expenditure decisions in South Korea as well as how fiscal decentralization affects those interactions, using a panel data set from 2010 to 2017. The results demonstrate that a local government mimics other governments' spending when those governments' residents share similar age demographics. Moreover, local governments in South Korea engage in strategic interactions as their expenditure side becomes more decentralized. However, local governments tend to demonstrate less isomorphic behaviour in welfare spending decisions when they have higher revenue decentralization. This is because local governments have no motive to emulate other welfare policies, as the central government delegates the provision of social services to local governments by providing grants with strings attached.     

Public Expenditures on Education and Cultural Affairs in the West German States: Does Government Ideology Influence the Budget Composition?

Abstract. This paper examines whether government ideology influenced the allocation of public expenditures on education and cultural affairs in the West German states in the 1974–2006 period. I explicitly consider the allocation of policy responsibilities between the federal and the states' governments. The results suggest that leftist governments slightly increased public spending for schooling, whereas rightwing governments spent somewhat more on universities and cultural affairs. This spending pattern appears to be in line with the preferences of the governing parties' constituencies and indicates political competition in a time of declining electoral cohesion.     

Using a discontinuous grant rule to identify the effect of grants on local taxes and spending

When investigating the effects of federal grants on the behavior of lower-level governments, it is hard to defend the handling of grants as an exogenous factor. Federal governments often set grants based on characteristics and performance of decentralized governments. In this paper we make use of a discontinuity in the Swedish grant system in order to estimate the causal effects of general intergovernmental grants on local spending and local tax rates. The formula for the distribution of funds is used as an exclusion restriction in an IV-estimation. We find evidence of crowding-in, where federal grants are shifted to more local spending, but not to reduced local tax rates.     

政绩考核与环境治理——基于地方政府间策略互动的视角

在中国式分权下,政绩考核直接影响环境政策的执行效果.文章基于地方政府间环境治理策略互动的视角,首先结合分权理论、政治锦标赛、行政发包制等,提出了政绩考核影响地方政府间环境治理策略互动的假说.在此基础上,采用2003?2014年中国272个地级市的面板数据,通过构建空间面板数据模型研究发现:合理的政绩考核指标和分权体系可以使环境治理向"良性竞争"的方向发展.具体而言,环境绩效指标直接增强了地方政府间"竞相向上"的策略互动;经济绩效指标则减弱了"竞相向上"的策略互动.进一步地,政绩考核与分权相结合对地方政府间策略互动产生影响:严格的环境绩效指标通过事权和财权弱化了"竞相到底"的策略互动,强化了"竞相向上"的策略互动;而经济绩效指标则通过事权和财权强化了"竞相到底"的策略互动,弱化了"竞相向上"的策略互动.文章据此提出的政策启示是:环境治理须"联防联控",合理设定政绩考核指标,且配之以合理的分权体系.     

STOP US BEFORE WE SPEND AGAIN: INSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON GOVERNMENT SPENDING

A distributive politics model establishes that the presence of exogenously enforceable spending limits reduces spending and that the effect of executive veto authority is contingent on whether spending is capped and whether the chief executive is a liberal or conservative. Surprisingly, when spending limits are in place, governments with conservative executives spend more than those with more liberal chief executives. Limits are welfare improving, as is the executive veto when it leads to the building of override coalitions. Using 32 years of US state budget data, this paper also establishes empirically that strict balanced budget rules constrain spending and also lead to less pronounced short-term responses to fluctuations in a state's economy. Party variables like divided government and party control of state legislatures tend to have little or no direct effect, with political institutions and economic indicators explaining much of the variation in state spending.     

Single‐Party Rule,Public Spending,and Political Rents: Evidence from Finnish Municipalities*

In this paper, I investigate the differences in public spending and extraction of political rents between single‐party and coalition governments. Common pool theories predict that coalitions tend to spend more and extract more rents than single‐party governments. Using data from Finnish municipalities for the years 1997–2012 and a regression discontinuity design approach tailored for proportional elections, I provide causal evidence consistent with the theoretical predictions.     

美国地方行政区划若干问题探讨

本文在正确认识美国联邦政府和州政府之间的关系基础上．着重对美国的地方行政区划、地方行政区划单位和地方行政区划的特点进行了论述．进而讨论了美国联邦政府—州政府—地方政府之间的相互关系以及州政府之间的关系．形成了对美国地方行政区划的一些比较正确的认识。     

Testing the taxmimicking versus expenditure spill-over hypotheses using English data

Spatial interaction among local governments in tax setting and public spending decisions is receiving increasing attention in the applied public economics literature. Spatial interaction models rely on the presence of an externality from local budget making: in traditional public finance models, external effects originate either from interjurisdictional resource flows due to tax competition for a mobile base, or from local public expenditure spill-overs into neighbouring jurisdictions. However, the recent political agency/yardstick competition literature has stressed the role of ‘informational’ externalities between neighbouring jurisdictions, and predicted tax mimicry at the local level. The actual relevance of the above hypotheses clearly needs to be assessed empirically. In this paper, an attempt is made at discriminating between alternative sources of local fiscal interaction, by using data on the English municipal authorities' budgets. While both public spending levels and local property tax rates exhibit considerable positive spatial autocorrelation, maximum likelihood and instrumental variables estimation results suggest that the interdependence among local governments can be attributed to mimicking behaviour in local property tax setting.     

Transfers and Bailouts: Institutions for Enforcing Local Fiscal Discipline

The growing importance of local and provincial governments as providers of public services and the importance of those services for the overall performance of the national economy has led to a careful re-examination of how public resources are allocated by decentralized governments. While the Tiebout model promises efficient local resource allocations, the conditions necessary for such outcomes—many local governments, fully informed and costlessly mobile households, no spillovers, residential head taxes—are rarely met in practice. Lacking a sufficient number of competitive local governments, however, other institutional safeguards must be found. Four such institutions are identified here. First, a stable central government managed by nationally elected political parties or presidents capable of making (second-best) efficient interpersonal redistributions of income while at the same time denying inefficient intergovernmental transfers and /or access to non-resident taxation. Second, a mature banking system and fully integrated national capital markets to minimize the economic consequences of a single government's failure to repay its local debts. Third, informed and sophisticated municipal bond and local land markets capable of evaluating local services and finances so as to shift back onto local residents the full economic consequences of inefficient local government fiscal choices. Fourth, a politically independent judiciary capable of enforcing constitutional rules for spending and tax assignment, local debt repayment, and balanced local budgets. Efficient central governments and efficient land and capital markets are seen here as necessary institutional pre-conditions for an efficient local public sector.     

Municipal Finance in Poland,the Slovak Republic,the Czech Republic and Hungary: Institutional Framework and Recent Development

The recent process of political and economic transition in eastern European countries has not only contributed to the decentralisation of political structure but also significantly enhanced the fiscal autonomy of municipalities in these countries. In this context many similar types of public activities have recently been assigned to local governments, and some taxes were also declared to be local taxes. To be sure, this type of fiscal decentralisation has caused some additional problems, particularly for safeguarding the quality of publicly provided goods and services and for co-ordinating intergovernmental fiscal transfers between the central and local governments. For instance, some criticise that many small-sized municipalities in the transition economies have suffered from financial bottlenecks and have not been able to receive sufficient financial support from the central government. However, such a fiscal devolution trend appears to continue. This study primarily deals with issues surrounding the impact of national fiscal policy and the regulatory framework on local governments' expenditure behaviour and their ability to mobilise necessary revenues under the particular consideration of the institutional and administrative co-operation with the central government and of the less well-developed financial market in Poland, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Hungary.     

GOVERNMENT FRAGMENTATION AND BUDGETARY POLICY IN "GOOD" AND "BAD" TIMES IN FLEMISH MUNICIPALITIES

Using a panel of budgetary data over the period 1989–1996, we analyse how political fragmentation of Flemish local governments affects their reactions in the context of a major reform of the grant system. This reform reallocated grants among municipalities and thus unavoidably created "winners" and "losers". Thus, it is possible to distinguish between political reactions in good and bad times. The presence of a balanced budget requirement implies that in bad times municipalities have to react whereas in good times the decision to react is endogenous to the government. The results are in line with the hypotheses, if not the findings, of Kontopoulos and Perotti (1999) in that we find that fragmentation is important both in good and in bad times. Coalition size – the number of political parties – plays a crucial role when the budgetary shock is endogenous (in "good times" when grants increase). In this case, we find that more-party governments spend more of the additional funds. On the other hand, cabinet size – the number of spending ministers (aldermen) – is the relevant dimension of fragmentation when the reaction is exogenous (in "bad times"). When grants are cut back, expenditures are cut back more in municipalities with fewer ministers.     

论财政调控与转移支付体系的完善

财政调控作为一种比行政控制更为适当和有效的调节地方政府行为的方式,可以通过中央对地方的转移支付来实现。而我国目前财政转移支付形式繁多、结构不合理、分配方法不规范,为此,迫切需要调整转移支付的模式选择、改进转移支付的结构和分配方法。     

经济分权、人口迁徙与大国发展之路——基于人均产出增长地区差异的实证分析

文章从分权式改革的视角分析了中国改革开放30年来的经济发展道路,总结了中国经济高速增长的主要成功经验在于政治集权下的经济分权。但是经济分权并不能有效缩小城乡、地区与贫富差距,其原因在于中国人口不能自由迁徙,对落后地区的地方政府不能实现"用脚投票"效应,从而影响了对地方政府的监督与激励作用。文章指出只有在人口自由迁徙的条件下,政治集权下的经济分权才能有效激励地方政府,特别是落后地区地方政府发展地方经济的积极性。在认清分权式改革与人口迁徙关系的基础上,正确设计下一步的改革方略,有利于中国真正走出一条大国发展之路。     

中央政府与地方政府的政策博弈及其治理

本文描述了中央政府和地方政府政策博弈的凸现与加剧,认为这种政策博弈的制度性根源是市场取向的分权制以及以GDP为核心的政绩指标考核体系,制度性根源对政策博弈具有传导机制.这种政府博弈的积极影响促进了中央政府政策的更加合理、完善,而消极影响则是中央政府调控能力大打折扣、中央政府遭遇信任危机和扰乱市场秩序.治理途径则在于建立新型中央政府和地方政府关系,采取消除政策博弈的措施,即真正做到财权与事权的统一、建立居民的退出与呼吁机制、构建更加合理的政绩观与指标考评体系.     

Growth effects of public expenditure on the state and local level: evidence from a sample of rich governments

There is a vast empirical literature investigating the relationship between government size and economic growth. But the empirical evidence of growth effects of public expenditure using cross-country regressions is still inconclusive. According to a number of authors this is not surprising since the negative relationship only applies for rich countries with a large public sector. Restricting their analysis on rich countries only they can show the predicted negative impact. Naturally, a selection of a sub-sample of rich countries is always somewhat arbitrary. Another possibility is to concentrate on governments within a rich country. However, only few studies investigate the effect of state and local spending on economic growth. This study concentrates on the relationship between public expenditure and economic growth within a rich country using the full sample of state and local governments from Switzerland over the 1981–2001 period. The general finding is a fairly robust negative relationship between government size and economic growth. However, in contrast to public spending from operating budgets there is no significant impact on economic growth by expenditure from capital budgets.