纵向财政关系改革与基层政府财力保障:准自然实验分析

基层政府的财力保障关系到整个国家财政职能的履行。如何调整政府间纵向财政关系以提升基层政府的财力水平,是加快建立现代财政制度的重要问题。近年来,省直管县财政体制改革的推行成为理顺政府间纵向财政关系的一项重要尝试,为实证研究纵向财政关系改革对县级基层政府财力保障的影响提供了准自然实验分析的条件。本文基于全国县级数据,利用倾向得分匹配-双重差分法(PSM-DID),研究省直管县这一纵向财政关系改革对县级可支配财力的影响,并且对其影响路径加以识别。研究结果表明,改革对县级可支配财力的提高具有显著促进作用;相比于本级财政收入,改革对上级转移支付的提升作用更为明显,说明改革更多的是通过约束地级市对县级转移支付的截留行为,实现了县级基层政府财力水平的提高。     

Effects of transitory shocks to aggregate output on consumption in poor countries

This paper provides instrumental variables estimates of the response of aggregate private consumption to transitory output shocks in poor countries. To identify exogenous, unanticipated, idiosyncratic and transitory variations in national output we use year-to-year variations in rainfall as an instrumental variable in a panel of 39 sub-Saharan African countries during the period 1980–2009. Our estimates yield a marginal propensity to consume out of transitory output of around 0.2. To explain this result we show, using instrumental variables techniques, that there is a significant negative effect of transitory output shocks on net current transfers and a significant positive and quantitatively large effect on the trade balance. An important implication is that frictions to private financial flows do not necessarily imply large effects of transitory shocks to aggregate output on private consumption in poor countries.