转移支付与县域财力的分化

本文在极化指数的分析框架下,对1993-2003年全国范围内县域财力分化过程从两种分组方式进行分析。全国范围内极化指数改善的同时,三大地域内部呈现出相异的演进趋势。就转移支付的类型而言,专项补助、一般转移支付补助、税费改革转移支付补助以及消费税和增值税税收返还在全国整体范围内对县域财力的影响较大,其中专项补助对县域财力分化的贡献度最大。就转移支付对县域内部收入各层级间的边际影响而言,收入70%分位数以下的县在接受转移支付过程中整体收入状况得到了一定的改善,其中最低20%收入组县域财力的改善程度最为明显。转移支付过程中重视结构效应以及建设横向转移支付制度,是改善县域财力分化局面的题中之义。     

Welfare Magnet Hypothesis,Fiscal Burden,and Immigration Skill Selectivity

In this paper, we investigate the effect of welfare state generosity on the difference between skilled and unskilled migration rates, and the role of mobility restriction in shaping this effect. We utilize the free labor movement within the European Union plus Norway and Switzerland (EUR) and the restricted movement from outside the EUR in order to compare the free‐migration regime to the restricted‐migration regime. We find strong support for the magnet hypothesis under the free‐migration regime, and the fiscal burden hypothesis under the restricted‐migration regime, even after controlling for differences in educational quality and returns to skills in source and host countries.     

More than Additions to Population: The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration

In the conceptual framework of the Intergenerational Reports, immigration features as an exogenous input into the size of the population and its composition by age and sex. There are good reasons for believing that immigration has sizeable endogenous components, that attributes other than age and sex distinguish immigrants from the native‐born, as well as from each other, and that these features are of significant economic and fiscal import. Last, it is suggested that, in the context of an ageing population, we may learn much about the effectiveness of different policy responses in achieving fiscal sustainability—as well as immigration policy—through a dynamic life cycle accounting approach.     

财政分权:促进国有企业效率提高的可置信承诺机制

中国的渐进式改革是政治集权下的财政分权改革。财政分权增强了地方政府发展地方经济的激励,导致地方政府间争夺经济资源的竞争。这种竞争提高了救助低效率国有企业的机会成本,可以作为一种承诺机制,硬化国有企业的预算约束,进而促进经济增长。     

"财政自利"与"财政立宪"研究

财政自利是政府作为“经济人”的一种必然现象。财政自利不仅可以发生在政府与社会公众之间,而且也发生在政府之间。唯有对政府财政活动进行立宪约束,才能从根本上制约政府的过分自利而损害社会或下级政府的行为发生。本文主要从依法建立民主理财、民主决策监督机制,实现纳税人对政府的有效约束以及依法建立政府间合理分权制衡机制等两个方面比较全面的分析了政府财政自利的约束和制衡。     

Government Expenditures and Revenues in Italy in a Long-run Perspective

The aim of this study is to investigate the sustainability of Italian public accounts using in a long-run perspective, using empirical tests on sustainability and solvency of the country’s fiscal policies. The results of unit root and stationarity tests show that government expenditures and revenues series are first-differences stationary. The empirical analysis considered both the entire period and two sub-periods (1862–1913, 1947–2013). Furthermore, we conduct tests on cointegration, which evidence that a clear long-run relationship between public expenditure and revenues emerges only for the years 1862–1913. In essence, the paper’s results reveal that Italy have sustainability problems in the republican age.

     

Volatile Mining Revenues and State Government Budget Decisions

Mining royalties provide a volatile source of revenue for state governments in Australia. We explore the effects of changes in royalty revenue received by a state government on current-year budget decisions about expenditure, tax revenue and the budget surplus. The literature postulates different models for how lower-level government budget decisions respond to a revenue windfall from a higher level of government. Empirical evidence on these models over 1998–2019 provides strong evidence that over a half of a royalty windfall becomes a change in budget expenditure. Estimates of changes to tax revenues and the surplus are not definitive nor robust.     

Government Spending, Taxation, and Oil Revenues in Mexico

The paper analyzes the intertemporal relationship between oil duties, taxes, government spending, and GDP in Mexico during the 1981–98 period. The results from estimating a VAR model, impulse response functions, and variance decompositions on the quarterly series of taxes, government spending, oil duties, and GDP suggest that there seems to be a substitution effect between oil duties and tax revenues, and that tax revenues are not able to absorb temporary decreases in oil duties. Also, increases in tax revenue might lead to increasing government spending, but short–run increases in government spending are not likely to lead to political pressure to reduce the expected budget deficit via increased taxation and/or oil revenues. Lastly, GDP is not stimulated in the short–run by temporary increases in government spending and, thus, stabilization measures adopted in recent years to reduce the size of the government are not likely to significantly undermine GDP growth.     

我国财政改革和政策实践研究

本文回顾了我国财政改革、财政政策演进历程,揭示了财政政策演进规律,探讨了财政政策宏观调控实践经验。研究发现:首先,与一般市场经济国家不同,我国财政政策从概念认识、实践启动、到运用技术日臻成熟,走出了一条缓解经济危机实现经济稳定、调节经济结构转变经济增长方式、化解民生难题促进社会和谐的独特之路。在这一过程中,财政政策更加注重供给管理。其次,在当前体制转轨背景下,我国财政政策突显出公共性和体制转型双重特征。最后,面对未来,我们需要在财政政策如何更好遵循市场经济规律;财政政策目标如何更聚焦于未来发展战略,如何推进财政改革以确保财政政策调控更具效力等方面总结更多的经验。     

论财政法制与财政监管

加强财政法制建设、强化财政监管，是财政改革和发展的客观要求，也是依法治国方略在财政管理中的重要体现。财政法制建设的关键，在于推进依法行政、依法理财。与此同时，市场经济条件下的财政监管也是保证财政体制运转和财政政策实施的重要手段，更是经济监管体系的构成要素之一。在深化财政改革的过程中注重财政法制建设和财政监管，对于推动公共财政框架的建立，将会产生积极、有效的影响。     

Commitment and self-control

The literature on self-control problems has typically concentrated on immediate temptations. This paper studies a Gul and Pesendorfer [Temptation and self-control, Econometrica 69 (2001) 1403-1435; Self-control and the theory of consumption, Econometrica 72 (2004) 119-158] style model in which decision-makers are affected by temptations that lie in the future. While temptation is commonly understood to give rise to a demand for commitment, it is shown that ‘temptation by future consumption’ can induce its absence. The model also exhibits procrastination, provides an alternative to projection bias as an explanation for some experimental results, and can simultaneously account for myopic and hyperopic behavior. The evidence on preference reversals supports temptation by future consumption, and suggests that it may not be restricted to short time horizons.     

Immigration and School Choice in Australia

This article examines the relationship between the share of immigrants in a locality and private versus public school choices of natives and immigrants in Australia. Using the 2001 Australian Census data, it finds that private school attendance among native‐born Australians is higher in localities with a higher share of immigrant populations. Immigrants’ private school attendance is lower where the share of their like‐type immigrants is higher. These effects vary with the presence of a common language and ethnic background between the natives and the immigrants. Overall, the results suggest the possibility of a ‘flight’ from unfamiliar cultures in the Australian school system.     

Immigration and welfare magnets

"This paper investigates if the location choices made by immigrants when they arrive in the United States are influenced by the interstate dispersion in welfare benefits. Income-maximizing behavior implies that foreign-born welfare recipients unlike their native-born counterparts, may be clustered in the states that offer the highest benefits. The empirical analysis indicates that immigrant welfare recipients are indeed more heavily clustered in high-benefit states than the immigrants who do not receive welfare, or than natives. As a result, the welfare participation rate of immigrants is much more sensitive to changes in welfare benefits than that of natives."     

财政集权过程中的转移支付和财政供养人口规模膨胀

结合财政分权的理论文献,本文描述了中国最近10多年来政府间财政关系的演变,并分析了财政集权过程中转移支付增加对地方财政供养人口的影响。利用中国1994—2003年县级面板数据和工具变量方法,我们从实证角度确立了转移支付增加与财政供养人口规模膨胀的因果关系,并指出在我国目前的政府管理体制下,上级政府面临着无论增加哪种转移支付都可能带来问题的两难处境。要在控制政府冗员增长的同时促进公共服务的有效提供,中国需要建立一个财政上更加分权和行政管理上更有基层参与性的政府管理体制。     

Immigration and Unemployment*

The wisdom of maintaining high levels of immigration into Australia has been questioned, particularly on the grounds that migration contributes to aggregate unemployment. This paper uses both statistical causality techniques and conventional structural models to investigate the relationship between immigration and unemployment in the post-war period in Australia. The tests find no evidence of any association from migration to unemployment, though there is strong evidence of a significant effect of Australian unemployment on migration. The results indicate that immigration policy should not be dictated by unfounded fears of immigration causing unemployment, at least over the range of previous Australian experience.     

财政分权、地区间竞争与中国经济波动

中央与地方政府在中国转型经济中扮演了关键角色,而多级政府结构往往为传统的财政政策文献所忽略。本文将中央与地方两级政府结构引入主流的动态一般均衡模型中,考察财政分权下地方性财政政策对中国宏观经济的动态影响。研究发现:(1)具有财政分权的多级政府基准模型可以解释约64%的总产出波动、47%的投资波动以及62%的消费波动;(2)地方性公共投资对本地经济具有促进作用,同时通过地区间贸易对其他地区产生正的溢出效应;且该溢出效应会随着地区间财政竞争程度的加深而显著加强,因此财政竞争为地方性投资政策提供了重要的传导机制;(3)反事实分析表明,深度财政分权会在短期内加强地方财政支出的波动效应而削弱中央财政支出的波动效应,同时又在长期提高整个经济总产出与社会总福利。本文为定量研究我国经济转型期的财政政策动态效应提供了一个新的视角。     

Starting Small and Commitment

I study a model of a long-term partnership with two-sided incomplete information. The partners jointly determine the stakes of their relationship and individually decide whether to cooperate with or betray each other over time. I characterize the extremal—interim incentive efficient—equilibria. In these equilibria, the partners generally “start small,” and the level of interaction grows over time. The types of players separate quickly. Further, cooperation between “good” types is viable regardless of how pessimistic the players are about each other initially. The quick nature of separation in an extremal equilibrium contrasts with the outcome selected by a strong renegotiation criterion (as studied in Watson (1999, J. Econ. Theory85, 52–90). Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, C73, D74.     

结构性财政调控与新常态下财政工具选择

本文综合考虑李嘉图和非李嘉图两类居民个体行为,构建新凯恩斯动态随机一般均衡模型,形成了一个较为系统的结构性财政工具经济效应研究框架。研究发现,不同财政工具的宏观经济效应存在显著差异,政府在进行财政宏观调控时应区别对待、审慎选取。模拟冲击结果表明减税效应相对优于支出扩张效应。在当前经济增速放缓、财政支出为主的刺激政策渐显乏力之际,政府应转变以往财政政策调控思路,逐步由大规模政府支出刺激政策向结构性减税政策调整。本文认为,应深入推行政府和社会资本合作(PPP)模式,支出重点向社保、医疗、养老及公共服务倾斜,促进政府逐步向服务型政府过渡;税收政策应主要以对消费结构性减税为主,以有效促进需求结构向消费驱动转型。