美国的政府间转移支付改革及启示

美国的政府间转移支付采取的是以有条件转移支付为主的模式,并且主要是专项拨款方式.但从20世纪60年代以来,美国联邦政府开始了大规模的转移支付改革,将部分庞大、烦琐的专项转移支付逐步合并调整为分类拨款.目前分类拨款规模在联邦政府预算拨款中已与专项拨款规模相当,对美国政府间财政关系和相关社会福利事业及受援对象产生了重大而深远的影响,特别是1996年后TANF对AFDC的取代,引起了各界的广泛关注.分类拨款改革是美国联邦政府转移支付形式的创新,对我国政府间转移支付制度的改革和完善具有借鉴之处.     

试论我国现行政府间转移支付制度

我国现行政府间财政转移支付制度存在的问题主要有:政府间转移支付规模庞大且迅速增长,资金使用不规范,缺乏有效监督与制约机制;均等化作用不明显;以"税收返还"为代表的无条件拨款具有非规范性和过渡性;省以下政府间转移支付制度建设滞后等.针对这些问题,我们应明确各级政府的职责、规范转移支付的路径、完善省级与下级政府间转移支付制度、建立激励约束机制与监督评价体系,进一步做好有关转移支付测算的基础工作.     

规范我国财力性转移支付制度的建议

1·将财力性转移支付明确分为一般性转移支付和专项转移支付两类。国外政府基本上都是采用无条件的一般性转移支付与有条件的专项转移支付相结合的方式。我国目前的财力性转移支付从实质上说也具有上述两种补助方式的特征,因此,可以从这两个方面对其进行区分:其中一般性转移支付、民族地区转移支付和年终结算财力补助等项目,即为无条件且平衡财力作用明显的转移支付方式;而其余项目,如调整工资转移支付等指定支出目的的转移支付,具有明显的专项转移支付性质,可以考虑将其明确为规范的专项转移支付。我国目前被称为专项转移支付的部分存在一…     

我国财政转移支付存在的问题及对策

在分税制体制下,财政转移支付是均衡地方财力的重要手段。然而,财政转移支付的目标能否得以实现,还受到转移支付规模、结构、方式等因素的影响。自分税制改革以来,我国中央财政转移支付的规模不断扩大,已成为地方财政支出的重要来源。但从均衡省际之间财力的角度看,我国中央财政转移支付的效率还需进一步提高。为此,我国还需要创新财政转移支付制度,调整转移支付规模和结构,改革资金配置的方法。     

财政转移支付的空间格局及其对中国县域社会经济发展的效应

基于县域尺度财政转移支付数据,利用空间分析、熵权TOPSIS、GMM动态面板模型等方法,对我国转移支付空间格局及其社会经济发展效应进行测度,研究发现:首先,转移支付分布基本与分配机制吻合,呈现西多东少的基本特征,而税收返还则反之。特定区域如生态功能区、老少边穷地区等转移支付呈现投入增加的态势,总体而言财政转移支付并没未有效缩小地区间发展差异。其次,转移支付对社会经济发展的影响可分为总量影响、结构影响和双向影响。其中总量影响为正向影响,结构影响中无条件转移支付主要体现为总量效应,有条件转移支付则会通过影响地方政府决策而产生更为复杂的影响机制,双向影响指社会经济发展现状对于转移支付具有反向影响,对地方政府财税努力形成负向激励,弱化转移支付社会经济发展的正向促进作用。最后,综合性转移支付和均衡性转移支付对县域社会经济发展均起到明显的正向促进作用,但并未有效缩小欠发达地区与发达地区之间社会经济发展差距,其中负向激励和软性公共产品投入不足可能为其中的重要因素。     

中国教育财政缺口与基于教育均等化的转移支付模式研究

我国的教育事业支出绝大部分由地方政府承担,一方面受以GD P为标准的政绩考核制度的影响,地方政府的教育努力程度较低;另一方面地区间自然禀赋及经济发展水平的差异致使我国教育发展水平的区域性差异较大。文章利用2012年数据,在确定各地区教育财源比例的基础上估算了我国省级层面的教育财政缺口,结果发现：中西部地区是存在教育财政缺口的集中区域,但我国目前的教育转移支付资金还远不能弥补这些地方的教育财政缺口。在此基础上,文章设计了一套有条件拨款的教育专项转移支付模式,把对地方政府财政决策行为的约束与教育专项转移支付制度相结合,以期能保障教育财源和弥补地方教育财政缺口。     

我国不同形式转移支付财力 均等化效应研究

本文通过基尼系数分解的方法考察了我国转移支付的地区间财力均等化效应。计算结果显示,一般性转移支付和专项转移支付在资金分配上均向财力较弱的地区进行了倾斜,具有财力均等化效应,在强度上,一般较专项要强。在构成一般性转移支付的诸多子项目中,农村税费改革转移支付向财力较弱地区的倾斜程度最强,教育转移支付次之,紧随其后的分别是基本财力保障机制奖励补助以及调整工资转移支付。但是由于均衡性转移支付规模较大,财力均等化效应最强。     

民族地区财政转移支付效应评价

分税制改革以来,针对民族地区的财政转移支付制度不断调整,形成了一个纵向逐级传递式财政转移支付模式。本文梳理了民族地区财政转移支付的构成及路径,并对当前民族地区财政转移支付现状及效应进行了分析和评价,发现民族地区财政转移支付无论是对民族地区社会经济发展还是财力均等化都取得了一定的成效,但仍存在总体规模过小、结构不合理、转移支付路线单一、缺乏法律规范等问题,应有针对性地完善民族地区财政转移支付制度。     

财政转移支付制度的现实困境与改革路径研究

1994年中国实施分税制改革以来,中央对地方转移支付制度逐步完善,资金规模稳定增长,管理日趋规范、科学和有效,有力推动了地区间基本公共服务均等化和区域协调发展,促进了中央各项宏观调控政策的贯彻落实.但在转移支付管理中也存在一些问题,如一般性转移支付和专项转移支付的边界不够清晰,部分项目功能交叉,一定程度上影响了转移支付资金使用效益的充分发挥,弱化了政策实施效果.本文论述了转移支付的类型和功能,通过分析中国转移支付现状和综合借鉴国际经验,建议适时设立分类转移支付,进一步理清一般性转移支付、分类转移支付和专项转移支付的功能定位,最大程度地发挥资金使用效益.     

转移支付制度的调整和规范

作为构建公共经济新体制的一个重要组成部分,中国政府间转移支付制度改革与创新面临着十分繁重而紧迫的任务,主要包括相对规模和总体结构的调整、分配机制的重塑以及组织结构的构建三个方面。一、政府间转移支付相对规模的适当压缩政府间转移支付相对规模大小,既取决于一国内部各地区之间经济发展不平衡的程度和国家实施宏观经济调控的力度(一般而言,国内地区间经济社会发展水平差距和国家实施宏观经济调控的力度越大,政府间转移支付的相对规模也就越大),同时也与整个财政体制,特别是财政收入纵向配置的主观设计密切相关。     

Multilateral bargaining: conditional and unconditional offers

Summary. We present a game in which n persons split a cake, where a distinction between conditional and unconditional offers is made. This distinction sheds light on the contrasting results obtained in the previous literature of multilateral bargaining. By allowing the proposer to make both conditional and unconditional offers, we show that the game has a unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium outcome. Received: March 14, 2000; revised version: March 13, 2001     

Conditional versus unconditional bidding in takeovers

This paper explores the properties of multiple conditional takeover bids, and compares them with those of unconditional ones. If the initial takeover bid is unsuccessful, a raider is allowed to make a new tender offer to secure the required number of shares. Numerical analysis shows that the raider's expected profit from a conditional tender offer is higher than his expected profit from an unconditional bid, but still much lower than is predicted by static theories. However, the probability of a shareholder tendering his share is higher under the unconditional rather than conditional bidding. As the time between tender offers goes to zero, we show analytically that the expected profit from engaging in a conditional takeover bidding goes to zero similarly to the case of multiple unconditional offers.     

Social transfers and conditionalities under different regime types

This paper examines the implications of political factors for social policy choices. Specifically, we explore the link between regime type and adoption of unconditional transfers versus transfers conditioned on beneficiaries’ investments in human capital. Due to the direct nature of benefits, unconditional transfers are more likely to be used to buy off opposition and prevent social unrest. As transfers that are conditioned on education and health pay off only in a relatively distant future, they are rarely initiated for political motives and rather defined by interests of long-term development and human capital accumulation. Using the new dataset on Non-Contributory Social Transfer Programs (NSTP) in developing countries, we find that transfers are indeed chosen so as to be unconditional under less democratic regimes. There is some evidence that conditional transfers are more likely to be adopted in democracies. In particular, democracies tend to increase the number of conditional schemes once any social transfer program is introduced.     

Estimation of demand and supply functions from univariate sample with known separation

It is shown that the joint unconditional density function of demand and supply is a computable function of parameters of the conditional density function of the observed quantity. Propositions of formulating unconditional and conditional disequilibrium measures are suggested.     

The Political Economy of IMF Conditionality: A Common Agency Model

The paper models the relationship between an aid‐providing international financial institution (IFI) and an aid‐receiving government whose economic policy choices are influenced by a domestic interest group. Two assistance schemes are evaluated: conditional aid in which the IFI makes assistance contingent on less‐ distorting economic policies and unconditional aid which is provided without such conditions. Conditional aid is shown to raise welfare of the receiving country and the world as a whole relative to unconditional aid. The paper also examines how conditional and unconditional aid schemes are influenced by the IFI's opportunity cost of providing assistance and the receiving government's political dependence on a domestic interest group.     

中国旅游增长收敛吗——基于1990～2008年入境旅游收敛性研究

旅游促进落后地区经济发展,为相对落后地区追赶发达地区贡献力量,国务院、旅游局等曾先后提出要＂促进区域旅游协调发展＂。这种区域旅游协调发展的思路有一定理论基础：从新古典经济学角度看,由于存在资本边际收益递减规律,落后地区会以较高的增长速度追赶发达地区,最后达到收敛的均衡状态;但是从空间经济学角度看,由于存在规模收益递增效应,会出现两极分化而不是收敛的结果。为检验我国旅游增长是哪一种结果,以我国1990～2008年入境旅游统计资料为依据,使用β无条件收敛和条件收敛检验了我国入境旅游收敛情况。结果表明,我国入境旅游以2%的速度无条件收敛,以8%的速度条件收敛。所以,我国入境旅游发展是资本边际收益递减规律起主导作用,即我国入境旅游增长存在收敛情况。此外,研究还发现：现实旅游资源、人力资本、感知距离等因素,能在不同程度上影响我国入境的旅游收敛情况。     

A note on the hedging effectiveness of GARCH models

This note compares the hedging effectiveness of the conventional hedge ratio and time-varying conditional hedge ratios (of which GARCH ratio is a special case). It is shown that, in large sample cases, the conventional hedge ratio provides the best performance. For small sample cases, a sufficiently large variation in the conditional variance of the futures return is required to produce the opposite result. The result is due to the fact that the hedging effectiveness measure is based upon the unconditional variance; meanwhile, the conventional hedge ratio minimizes the unconditional variance and the conditional hedge ratio aims at minimizing the conditional variance.     

A COMPARISON OF CONDITIONAL AND UNCONDITIONAL APPROACHES IN VALUE‐AT‐RISK ESTIMATION*

In this paper, we attempt to find the most important factor causing the differences in the performance of Value‐at‐Risk (VaR) estimation by comparing the performances of conditional and unconditional approaches. For each approach, we use various methods and models with different degrees of flexibility in their distributions including S_U‐normal distribution, which is one of the most flexible distribution functions. Our empirical results underscore the importance of the flexibility‐of‐distribution function in VaR estimation models. Even though it seems to be unclear which approach is better between conditional and unconditional approaches, it seems to be clear that the more flexible distribution we use, the better the performance, regardless of which approach we use.     

Invariance of conditional maximum utility

The consumer benefit in a discrete choice model is often measured by maximum utility. We characterize the conditional (on the chosen alternative) and the unconditional distribution of maximum utility. We show that among a wide class of distributions (independent with convex supports) of error terms, the Type I extreme-value distribution is the unique distribution which ensures that all the conditional distributions of maximum utility coincide. Moreover, we show that for i.i.d. (with convex support) error terms, the invariance of conditional expected maximum utility characterizes the multinomial logit model.     

中国的转移支付制度与地区公共服务均等化

政府间财政转移支付是实现地区公共服务均等化的重要制度保障,而公共服务均等化是转移支付制度的目标.根据国际上通行的转移支付方式和我国转移支付制度的运行效果,当前,我们应弱化、取消非规范性、非均等化的转移支付形式,扩大一般性转移支付规模,建立一般性转移支付和专项转移支付相结合的转移支付制度.