Political determinants of intergovernmental transfers in a regionally decentralized authoritarian regime: evidence from China

This article examines the political determinants of the allocation of intergovernmental transfers in the context of China. In a regionally decentralized authoritarian regime, a government marked by political centralization and fiscal decentralization, intergovernmental transfers are employed by politicians as instruments to achieve political goals. Using China’s provincial data from 1994 to 2009, we find that the officials’ political power is an important factor in the distribution process. A party secretary’s replacement facilitates an increase in transfers, especially if the replacement comes from the central government. If a party secretary is a member of the Central Politburo, the province receives more conditional transfers than others. The central government allocates the transfers in such a way that the province with a high proportion of the minority population receives more transfers than others.     

地方政府应对网络舆情能力的评价体系研究

对网络舆情做出及时、准确和有效地应对是网络时代地方政府必备的执政能力之一，对地方政府应对网络舆情的能力做出客观评价是提升政府执政艺术的重要一环。网络舆情是极具中国特色的术语，因此以国内最权威的研究机构和具有省级以上相关项目的高校为研究样本，分别从统计学和系统动力学两种评价体系展开研究，分析了上述研究体系的现状和存在的不足，并提出了初步的设想。     

论邓小平的执政思想

执政党如何使自己的决策和运行机制适应执政的特点，如何按照执政的要求建立领导体制和执政方式，以及如何提高执政党的执政能力，从而巩固党的执政地位。邓小平同志提出了执政党首先应该搞清楚的问题是“什么是社会主义，如何建设社会主义”和“执政党应该是一个什么样的党，怎样建设执政党”。不仅如此，执政党还要研究世情、国情和党情，还必须加强自身的建设，只有这样中国共产党才能立于不败之地。     

Regulation and rent‐seeking: The role of the distribution of political and economic power

It is shown that the joint distribution of economic and political power plays a key role in determining regulatory and tax policies of national and subnational governments. If both economic and political power are evenly distributed across individuals, then regulatory and tax policies are efficient, but if they are unevenly distributed and positively correlated, then regulatory policy is used by subnational governments to redistribute income in favor of individuals with higher economic and political power at the expense of productivity and output. Consequently, the national government has to raise the tax rate to finance public expenditure. Moreover, if there exists a positive correlation between economic and political power, then the higher the fiscal gap, the larger the gap between equilibrium and efficient policies because subnational governments underestimate more the fall of public revenues caused by inefficient policies.     

Do voters demand responsive governments? Evidence from Indian disaster relief

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters punish the ruling party when its government responds vigorously to the crisis, indicating that voters reward the government for responding to disasters. We also find evidence suggesting that voters only respond to rainfall and government relief efforts during the year immediately preceding the election. In accordance with these electoral incentives, governments appear to be more generous with disaster relief in election years. These results describe how failures in electoral accountability can lead to suboptimal policy outcomes.     

国民收入、价格水平与 省级政府公共文化支出

国民收入的增加、价格水平的上升会促使省级地方政府加大公共文化支出占比吗？本文利用2004-2010年间30个省份的面板数据为基础进行了实证检验,研究结果表明：（1）国民收入与公共文化支出占比之间为显著的负相关关系,说明逐步“富裕”起来的地方政府并没有加大对公共文化事业的投入;（2）价格水平的上涨是迫使地方政府增加文化支出的主要原因,即“成本病”是存在的。因此,政府层面的制度改革还需要进一步完善,这应当引起决策者的关注。     

Authoritarian transparency: China's missing cases in court disclosure

The question whether authoritarian regimes use transparency initiatives to improve public governance or only to perform window dressing remains open. To address it, we examine a recently promulgated transparency policy in China that mandates public access to all judicial opinions. We find that local courts fail to disclose more than 60% of their opinions in corporate litigation cases, measured against a baseline of publicly listed firms’ disclosure of their litigation, as required and enforced by the securities regulations. Instead of upholding judicial fairness, local courts disclose cases selectively, displaying favoritism and responding to private incentives. Courts are more likely to suppress the publication of their opinions when the firm involved in the litigation is state-owned or is the defendant in its home court, especially in the year before the promotion of the provincial party secretary. We also find that firms whose cases are disclosed by the courts undergo adverse economic consequences, signaling that they have fallen out of favor with the government.     

Populist policies in the transition to democracy

This paper develops a political economy model that provides an explanation as for why ruling elites in oligarchic societies may rely on income redistribution to the poor (the masses) in order to prevent them from attempting a revolution. We refer to this kind of redistribution as populist redistribution because, first it does not increase the poor's productive capacity (human capital), and second it seeks to “buy” political support (peace) to perpetuate the elite's control of political power. We examine the conditions under which ruling elites choose to deter the poor (by means of military repression and/or populist redistribution), to engage in a dispute with the poor for the control of political power, or, alternatively, to extend democracy. According to the results of the model populist redistribution (or military repression), if any, increases with initial wealth inequality and with the amount of redistribution that the poor can undertake under democracy, and decreases with the relative importance of a human capital externality in production. The model explains why in some cases the use of an apparently inefficient policy of populist redistribution turns out to be optimal for both groups (the ruling elite and the poor class) when the alternative is the use of military repression or default to conflict.     

中国的财政分权与经济增长——基于省级面板数据的实证

在Barro、Davoodi和Zou模型的基础上,本文构造了一个财政分权与经济增长关系的模型,并利用1980-2004年省级面板数据,采用随机效应回归方法,分阶段实证研究了我国财政分权对经济增长的影响.实证研究发现,财政分权总体上促进了我国的经济增长,而且我国财政分权的经济增长效应存在显著的跨区差异,东部地区的财政分权经济增长优势高于中西部地区.作者认为,财政分权体制下地方政府财政行为的差异与公共支出构成的差异是造成我国财政分权经济增长效应跨区差异的重要原因.     

The political agenda effect and state centralization

We provide a potential explanation, based on the “political agenda effect”, for the absence of, and unwillingness to create, centralized power in the hands of a national state. State centralization induces citizens of different backgrounds, interests, regions or ethnicities to coordinate their demands in the direction of more general-interest public goods, and away from parochial transfers. This political agenda effect raises the effectiveness of citizen demands and induces them to increase their investments in conflict capacity. In the absence of state centralization, citizens do not necessarily band together because of another force, the escalation effect, which refers to the fact that elites from different regions will join forces in response to the citizens doing so. Such escalation might hurt the citizen groups that have already solved their collective action problem (though it will benefit others). Anticipating the interplay of the political agenda and escalation effects, under some parameter configurations, political elites strategically opt for a non-centralized state. We show how the model generates non-monotonic comparative statics in response to the increase in the value or effectiveness of public goods (so that centralized states and public good provision may be absent precisely when they are more beneficial for society). We also suggest how the formation of a social democratic party may sometimes induce state centralization (by removing the commitment value of a non-centralized state), and how elites may sometimes prefer partial state centralization.     

回顾“82宪法”及其社会主义宪政思想——纪念现行宪法颁布30周年

＂宪政＂是民主与法制的完美结合。＂82宪法＂突出了＂政治模式归依生活秩序＂与＂制度理性软化阶级专政＂两项特征。前者强调权利实现,后者意味权力限制。它们分别在＂公民权利的具体化与人民代表大会制度的发展＂和＂党政分开与依法执政行政＂方面得以落实。这些在当时蕴含着新意而于当下成为了中国宪政的趋势和重心。     

Regime security and taxation in autocracies: Who is taxed and how?

We study taxation by autocratic rulers. Using a detailed dataset on government finances in 105 autocracies from 1950 to 2004, we find that despotic autocrats, who are defined as personally concentrating all decision-making power and as not relying on elites for regime support, tend, with a middle class absent, to use lower personal income taxes in face of a threat of rebellion from the population-at-large and to use higher land and property taxes to financially repress elites. When the threat to the regime is from elites, taxation is the converse, with the tax burden on elites is relaxed. Our empirical results show how autocratic rulers choose forms of taxation with awareness of elites and the population-at-large as groups that can threaten regime security.     

县乡财政解困与财政体制创新

发生在中国的县乡财政困难 ,是社会结构转型中制度转型有效支持不足所积累的矛盾在基层政府理财上的反映 ,与政府体制、省以下财政体制现存问题和农村生产要素市场化制度建设滞后有密切关系。本文在重点分析中国基层财政困难加剧的三个财政体制性因素的基础上 ,提出了配套改革、调整政府体制和省以下财政体制的三条建议 :( 1 )减少政府层级和财政层级 ;( 2 )按“一级政权 ,一级事权 ,一级财权 ,一级税基 ,一级预算 ,一级产权 ,一级举债权”思路推进省以下财政体制改革 ,同时健全自上而下的转移支付 ,完善以分税制为基础的分级财政 ;( 3 )按市场经济客观要求积极推进农村区域和基层政府辖区生产要素流动的制度创新。     

区域公共卫生服务收敛性研究——基于动态空间面板模型的实证分析

本文在现有财政支出收敛理论和经济增长空间收敛模型基础上,构建了公共卫生服务动态空间收敛理论模型,并采用动态空间面板收敛模型对1997-2006年中国大陆30个省、市、自治区公共卫生服务收敛情况进行了实证检验,结果发现:地区间公共卫生服务并不存在绝对收敛,但是存在条件收敛,差距有所缩小。财政收入的提高、居民收入水平的提高和中央政府转移支付的增加分别从供给、需求和收入效应的角度提高了地区公共卫生服务供给水平。但是,地区间公共卫生服务供给存在显著的空间负效应,降低了地区间公共卫生服务收敛速度,省级政府间未形成趋好竞争,反倒形成了逐底竞争。     

Decentralisation or patronage: What determines government's allocation of development spending in a unitary country? Evidence from Bangladesh

This paper contributes to the decentralisation and distributive politics literature by empirically investigating the determinants of public expenditure at the sub-national level in Bangladesh. We argue that fragmentation in a unitary developing country may not channel higher resources to local areas. Political motives may instead play a significant role in the allocation process. Using panel data methods and a novel dataset on government's district-wise allocation of annual development expenditure in Bangladesh covering the period from 2005 to 2009, the analysis focuses on the impact of local government fragmentation and tests key political distribution models (the core voter hypothesis, the swing voter hypothesis, and the political alignment theory). The results show that local government fragmentation does not have any significant impact on public spending at the district level. However, the core vote share, local elected representative's political alignment with the ruling party, and the raw number of ministers from a district are all significantly associated with higher expenditure allocation. No evidence was found in support of the swing voter hypothesis. Overall, the findings suggest that political motives matter and that the allocation of developing spending is significantly influenced by political patronage. This may be a signficant obstacle to SDGs progress, as development spending may not be governed by resource delivery mechanisms that effectively target the poor.     

Birds of a feather: Evidence on commonality of corruption and democracy in the origin and location of foreign investment in Russian regions

We examine the effects of subnational variations in corruption and democratization on the location decisions of foreign investors in Russian regions using firm-level panel data for the period 1996–2007. We link these effects to the level of corruption and type of political regime in the country of origin of a foreign investor. We find a relationship between attributes of foreign investors' home countries and attributes of the regions in which investment takes place: foreign investors from less corrupt and democratic countries tend to invest in less corrupt and more democratic Russian regions, whereas those from more corrupt and non-democratic countries tend to invest in more corrupt and less democratic regions. An inference is that, in Russian regions with high corruption and with autocratic government, foreign direct investment appears driven by the personal interests of controlling regional political elites who collaborate for mutual gain with foreign investors from corrupt and autocratic countries. Our results suggest a general conclusion that origin and location of foreign investment are linked by common political culture.     

中国地方政府债务可持续、财政空间与经济增长*

根据Ghosh et al（2013）财政空间理论，利用2010—2019中国省级面板数据，对中国省级政府债务可持续、财政空间和经济增长之间的关系及其机制进行了研究。结果表明，中国个别省份出现了财政疲劳现象，要把控好债务风险雷区，但各地区债务限额存在异质性，在不损害可持续性的情况下，大部分地方政府有足够的“回旋余地”实施财政刺激政策。我国省级政府的财政空间和经济增长之间存在倒“U”型关系，即当政府负债率高于财政空间的临界点（或较低的财政空间）时开始阻碍经济增长，因此，需要通过降低政府负债率实现更高的增长。进一步研究发现，政府债务影响经济增长最重要的渠道是公共投资和私人投资，全要素生产率、储蓄和长期真实利率也是政府债务影响经济增长的重要渠道，而长期名义利率未能成为政府债务影响经济增长的渠道。     

Bureaucratic discrimination in electoral authoritarian regimes: Experimental evidence from Russia

Are investors in electoral authoritarian regimes discriminated against for political activism? In this paper, we implement a simple experiment to test whether affiliation with the ruling party or the political opposition affects the probability that investors receive advice from investment promotion agencies in Russian regions. Between December 2016 and June 2017, we sent 1504 emails with a short question and a number of randomized treatments to 188 investment promotion agencies in 70 Russian regions. Although investment promotion agencies are nominally depoliticized in Russia, we find that switching the political affiliation of a potential investor from the opposition party “Yabloko” to the government party “United Russia” on average increases the chances to receive a reply by 30%. The effect strongly depends on regional levels of political competition, with higher levels of discrimination in regions that are less politically competitive.     

Income shifting, investment, and tax competition: theory and evidence from provincial taxation in Canada

We study corporate income taxation when firms operating in multiple jurisdictions can shift income using tax planning strategies. Because income of corporate groups is not consolidated for tax purposes in Canada, firms may use financial techniques, such as lending among affiliates, to reduce subnational corporate taxes. A simple theoretical model shows how income shifting affects real investment, government revenues, and tax base elasticities, depending on whether firms must allocate income to provinces or not. We then analyze data from administrative tax records to compare the behavior of corporate subsidiaries that may engage in income shifting to comparable firms that must use the statutory allocation formula to determine their taxable income in each province. The evidence suggests that income shifting has pronounced effects on provincial tax bases. According to our preferred estimate, the elasticity of taxable income with respect to tax rates for “income shifting” firms is 4.9, compared with 2.3 for other, comparable firms.     

省级社会保障公共支出分类比较研究

中国省级社会保障公共支出存在着类型化的可能。通过选取"社会保障公共支出水平"、"经济发展水平"和"政府力量"三个变量作为分类框架和指标,利用2005—2008年度截面数据测算,可以将各省份区分为东中西三大类型区域。统计分析发现,这三类区域不仅在省级社会保障公共支出相对比重之间存在着显著的差异,而且各区域也形成了不同的社会保障发展机制。