Fiscal Federalism and Electoral Accountability

We evaluate how governance uncertainty—exemplified by turnout uncertainty—affects the trade‐off between internalization of externalities and political accountability in the design of the fiscal state. We show that centralization only weakens political accountability in the presence of negative externalities. Unlike positive externalities, negative externalities allow federal politicians to extract higher rents. This yields two new insights. First, decentralization can only Pareto dominate centralization in economies with negative externalities. Second, centralization may not be Pareto efficient in economies with positive externalities despite the fact that policy can be tailored to regional taste differences and centralization internalizes the positive externality.     

如何最优地"放权"——行政事项集权与分权的最优边界

"简政放权、放管结合"是深化行政体制改革、转变政府职能的重要内容之一."放权"政策体现了政府的权力分配模式从集权向分权的转变,其本质是一种"行政性分权".文章从提高经济运行效率即最大化中央政府效用的视角,以建模方式——建立了一个三层次政府的动态博弈模型,给出了集权与分权的边界,揭示"放权"政策的逻辑,从而试图为研究政府最优行政分权提供一种可行的思路,并尝试用这一模型为"放权"政策提供合理的解释.模型分析结果表明,(1)分权能够在不改变社会福利水平的情况下,通过减少中央政府的信息成本负担提升了经济运行的效率,这也是"放权"政策的主要目的.同时,权力的下放可能导致下级政府"寻租"的隐患,需要加大对这一行为的惩罚力度."权力清单"制度的建立,通过明确规定中间政府的权力范围,加强了对中间政府行使权力的监督,减弱了其滥用权力的动机.(2)具有以下特征的权力,分权往往比集权更优:下级政府的成本负担轻、连带惩罚力度小;权力实施时底层政府追求的目标差异程度小、彼此之间相互影响程度小.与历次国发文中下放的权力做了比对后发现,这些被下放的权力能够用上述的特征进行较好的解释.(3)各因素影响分权最优性的强弱关系是:信息成本和对中间政府滥用权力的惩罚力度这两个因素强于权力本身的若干特征,即带给下级政府的成本负担、连带惩罚程度;政策实施时底层政府追求的目标差异程度、外部性大小.     

非营利组织财务治理模式:集权与分权选择初探

财务治理采取集权式、分权式抑或二者的结合,将对非营利组织获取和使用资源的经济性、效率和效果产生重要影响.由于集权和分权各有优缺点,非营利组织管理当局应当依据财务管理的具体运行情况,在充分考虑组织内外部各种因素的基础上,实行一种集权和分权均衡结合的"适度分权"模式.     

VOTING,LOBBYING, AND THE DECENTRALIZATION THEOREM

This paper revisits the well‐known fiscal “Decentralization Theorem” by relaxing the role of the assumption that governments are benevolent, while retaining the assumption of policy uniformity. If, instead, decisions are made by majority voting, the theorem fails. Specifically, (i) centralization can welfare‐dominate decentralization even if there are no externalities and regions are heterogeneous and (ii) decentralization can welfare‐dominate centralization even if there are positive externalities and regions are homogeneous. Similar results are obtained if a benevolent government is subject to lobbying. Hence, the Decentralization Theorem is not robust to relatively minor deviations away from the benchmark of a purely benevolent government.     

Refinancing and decentralization: Evidence from China

Decentralization can complement market liberalization by strengthening incentives of agents to respond to market signals. However, in China banks centralized lending authority following financial reforms in the mid-1990s. We present a new theory of financial decentralization in which centralization provides a credible commitment not to refinance bad projects by reducing available information. Using data from Chinese rural financial institutions, we empirically assess the determinants of decentralization and the likelihood of collateral seizure, strongly confirming the predictions of the refinancing model. We conclude that weak institutional environments may limit the efficiency of financial intermediation despite financial market liberalization.     

Centralization vs. Decentralization: A Principal-Agent Analysis

The decision to allocate policy jurisdictions to different levels of government is related to a number of trade‐offs between the advantages and disadvantages of centralized versus decentralized provision of public services. A trade‐off central to many discussions is that between the internalization of externalities under centralization versus an “accountability” advantage of decentralization. In this paper we formalize this trade‐off in the context of a class of principal–agent models known as common agency.     

The Level of Wage Bargaining as a Firm–Union Choice

There is a trade-off between central bargaining which allows local externalities to be internalized and local bargaining which gives firms and unions the scope to determine both wages and employment simultaneously and efficiently in the sense of McDonald and Solow (1981). A model of strong unions is presented where workers are also concerned with relative wages. The trade-off is resolved by the individual firm and union on the basis of choice, using the Pareto-criterion. In the presence of a small extra contract cost under local bargaining, the main findings are: (i) central bargaining is Pareto-optimal only for extreme values of the reservation income level—a change in unemployment remuneration may cause centralization to breakdown; and (ii) centralization may also be sustained as a suboptimal Nash-equilibrium through workers' concern with relative wages—the familiar Keynesian coordination failure.     

Relative consumption and majority voting: supplementing Oates’ “Decentralization Theorem”

This paper reconsiders the question of whether centralized or decentralized provision of local public goods is preferable, taking into account two new elements: the appearance of relative consumption effects and the possibility of an inefficient election outcome due to a right-skewed income distribution. Surprisingly, our results indicate that (1) decentralization may lead to a strictly higher welfare level than centralization, even if regions are homogeneous, and (2) under certain circumstances centralization may be welfare superior, even though traditional public good spillovers are not considered in our framework. Whether centralization or decentralization is preferable crucially depends on the extent to which social interaction takes place between regions.     

Public budget composition,fiscal (de)centralization,and welfare

Abstract We study the optimal degree of fiscal decentralization in a dynamic federal economy where governments decide on budget size and its allocation between public education and infrastructure spending. We find that full centralization of tax and expenditure policies is optimal when infrastructure productivity is similar across regions. When differences are not too large, partial centralization is optimal. With strong differences, full decentralization becomes optimal. National steady‐state output tends to be highest under full decentralization. We provide a justification for the mixed evidence regarding the Oates conjecture by showing that full dominates partial decentralization, despite being inferior to complete decentralization.     

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。     

最优财政分权度与我国经济增长的关系研究

过度集权或者过度分权都不利于经济增长,因此理论上可能存在一个最优财政分权度,并与最优经济增长水平相适应.本文对我国1985年至2000年财政分权对经济增长的影响进行了非线性关系检验,结果表明我国的最优财政分权度为66.67%.同时指出,我国的财政分权并不是面临一个是否应进一步分权或集权的问题,而是应该朝着制度完备的分权方向发展,使得财政分权通过制度的规范化、科学化、透明化、公正化而发挥其积极作用.     

集权与分权的抉择—改革开放30年中国财政体制的变迁

中国财政体制的演变反映出财政分权程度不仅没有提高,反而出现了财政集权的趋势;当前中央和地方间的事权错位,财权上移,事权下放,导致基层政府的支出责任过大;不当的事权和财权的划分造成了我国财政纵向不平衡较高,地方政府对中央政府的依赖度较高,但税收控制度低;财政分权对政府规模、经济增长和收入分配等有着不确定的影响;未来的改革还需要在进一步权衡分权和集权优劣的基础上作出选择,适当的分权是大势所趋。     

转型时期中央与地方税权治理机制的国际借鉴研究

转型时期中央与地方各级政府之间税权治理问题是困扰我国政府的难点。清醒的改革者在处理中央与地方各级政府之间税权关系时，应把握集权与分权的适度平衡，高度集权与不加限制的盲目分权均不可取；实现中央与地方税权的善治必须做出健全的制度安排。     

Decentralization and local pollution activities: New quasi evidence from China

Traditional fiscal federalism theory holds that decentralization may improve the provision of public goods and services. However, the social welfare field with strong externalities may face different incentives and behavioural logics. This paper provides novel empirical evidence for the causal relationship between decentralization and local pollution. In this paper, we focussed on China's widely spread decentralization reform, which substantially expanded the economic and social management autonomy of county governments. Using the difference-in-differences method and a panel dataset from 1998 to 2007, we found that the reform would compel affected counties to loosen environmental regulation, adopt financial and fiscal policies that would actually support heavy-pollution industries' rapid economic growth. Overall, the reform led to a significant increase in local pollution, thus worsening the overall environmental quality. Moreover, cost-benefit analysis indicated that the reforms generated net gains in social welfare, but the substantial environmental costs cannot be ignored.     

Enforcement and environmental quality in a decentralized emission trading system

Should the powers of monitoring compliance and allocating tradeable emissions allowances be appointed to a unique supranational regulator or decentralized to several local regulators? To answer this question, we develop a two stage-two country game where environmental regulators set the amount of emission allowances and the level of monitoring effort to achieve full compliance while the regulated firms choose actual emissions and the number of permits to be held. Various, possibly conflicting, spillovers between countries arise in a decentralized setting. We show that decentralization is socially harmful if no asymmetry among institutional settings is introduced and can be suboptimal even when decentralization features lower monitoring costs than a centralized setting. Lower monitoring costs are therefore necessary, but not sufficient, to justify decentralization. Also, our analysis reveals that welfare can be higher under decentralization even if the corresponding environmental quality is worse than under centralization. Indeed, better environmental quality is sufficient but not necessary for higher welfare under decentralization. Finally, we discuss how these results can provide a theoretical rationale for the recent evolution of the EU ETS design.     

Symmetric tax competition and lobbying within federations

The present paper deals with the question of whether tax harmonization and federal taxation increase welfare in a symmetric tax competition framework with heterogeneous individuals and lobbying. A model closely related to the approach of Lai (2010) is linked to externalities that are familiar from conventional public finance. The observed deviations from efficient taxation are derived from the interplay of four externalities, which can be divided into two groups: externalities occurring due to tax competition and externalities which are caused by lobbying. Whether or not the centralization of tax competences is useful depends mainly on the relative sizes of the competition-induced and lobbying-induced externalities.     

规模化过程中钢铁企业的组织结构设计

首先,分析了我国钢铁行业发展的特点,认为产品结构不够完善、行业集中度较低以及企业规模偏小是我国钢铁企业面临的主要问题,而规模是造成上述现状的根本原因;国际钢铁业己进入由大企业集团主宰的国际市场化阶段,我国钢铁企业需要扩大规模,增加在国际竞争中的话语权。其次,围绕企业的规模运作,运用经济学模型对小规模企业生产、紧密合作型企业生产以及产业链的大规模企业生产模式进行了分析,从理论视角论证了企业扩大规模的动机以及规模优势产生的机理和所需条件。大型组织结构优势产生的机理在于,通过生产及运营要素的优化整合实现合理分工协作,从而降低运营成本,提高企业的竞争力。此外,对钢铁企业采用的组织结构特点和运营模式进行了探讨,一元式的组织结构能够发挥职能分工所带来的效率,然而高度的集权特征不适用于超大规模企业的管理决策。控股公司和事业部结构体现了规模化后组织结构由集权向分权转化的趋势,但在运行中面临的效率障碍在于无法消除部门机会主义,分权后权威统筹机构的缺位以及传统的规模企业应当分权的逻辑需要企业重新思考。在上述分析基础上提出,钢铁企业在实现形式上的规模化后,需要考虑技术任务特征、信息处理以及权力的分化整合的平衡,构造合理的控制机制以保证规模优势的实现。     

经济转型、市场竞争与中国产业集中

中国产业组织结构的演变,大体经历了改革开放初期的逆集中化和20世纪80年代中后期以来的集中化两个阶段。这种演变过程是与中国经济的转型和市场竞争的加剧联系在一起的。在这种经济转型的过程中,领先市场竞争形成的“优胜劣汰”机制,将有利于促进产业的集中化过程。为提高中国产业的集中度,增强企业国际竞争能力,今后国家产业组织政策应改变过去那种过多采用行政干预的办法,逐步转变为以促进有效竞争为基本目标的竞争性政策为中心。     

Institutional Design as a Commitment Device in Credit Markets with Asymmetric Information: Experimental Evidence

The aim of this experiment is to test the role of institutional design in credit markets as a commitment device against renegotiation: when there is asymmetric information does a lower degree of centralization enhance efficiency? Does decentralization alleviate the adverse selection problem in credit markets? We run a large‐scale computerized experiment involving 12 different data sets and 3 different uncertainty scenarios on a sample of 120 subjects. The results obtained confirm the superiority of a decentralized institutional framework: the number of poor projects undertaken in a decentralized market was significantly smaller than the number of poor projects undertaken in centralized markets in all the scenarios. This experimental evidence shows that the institutional design is crucial in seeking financial discipline and therefore can shed some light on the debate on ‘Anglo‐Saxon’ versus ‘German–Japanese’ credit practices. (J.E.L.: C90, D82, G21, L10).     

Decentralization with externalities

In this paper, we examine in a systematic way the problem of decentralization in an economy with all types of externalities. We show that decentralization with artificial markets requires strong convexity assumptions which are typically not fulfilled for negative externalities on producers. A milder form of decentralization with taxation is shown to obtain under weaker convexity assumptions. A new example is given to explain the role of a non-interiority assumption. Finally, new types of non-convexities are described and the problem of rights to externalities is clearly defined in the framework of this general theory.