Strategic provision of local public inputs for oligopolistic firms in the presence of endogenous location choice

We develop a model in which two regional governments compete for a mobile oligopolistic firm by providing local public inputs. The central mechanism of our model is the interaction of an agglomeration advantage (partial nonrivalness of the local public inputs) and an agglomeration disadvantage (costs associated with the change of location of firms). We show that a central government of both regions induces an interregionally optimal allocation of firms by providing the optimal levels of local public inputs. The decentralized provision of local public inputs by regional governments, however, leads in most cases to a (interregionally) suboptimal allocation.     

Fiscal federalism and local public finance: A computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework

This paper attempts to make an argument for the feasibility and usefulness of a computable general equilibrium approach to studying fiscal federalism and local public finance. It begins by presenting a general model of fiscal federalism that has at its base a local public goods model with (1) multiple types of mobile agents who are endowed with preferences, private good endowments, and land endowments, (2) local governments that produce local public goods funded by a property tax, and (3) a land market that capitalizes local policies to equilibrate supply and demand. To this, a state (or national) government producing a state public good is added, and all levels of government abide by majority rule voting. A computable general equilibrium framework is derived from this theoretical model and calibrated to New Jersey micro tax data. It has been applied elsewhere to study the dominance of property in local tax bases as well as the general equilibrium effects of state or national intergovernmental programs such as redistributive grants in aid, district power equalization, and the deductibility of local taxes. Results in these areas are summarized and potential future applications discussed.     

公共品单向外溢下地方政府间演化博弈——以跨区域水资源生态补偿为例

水资源作为典型的公共品具有很强的外溢性,而且其外溢性具有单向流动的特征,围绕水资源生态补偿引发的流域上下游地方政府间矛盾日益突显.基于演化博弈理论,分析我国跨区域上下游地方政府的博弈过程以及影响因素.研究表明,流域上下游地方政府达成合作的局面长期内主要受上游地方政府惩罚值、下游地方政府惩罚值、下游地方政府对上游地方政府的补偿收益以及上游地方政府保护水资源的成本等四个方面因素影响,而与下游地方政府因水资源受到保护而获得生态收益无关.高层级政府解决水资源补偿问题时,不能仅考虑下游地方政府获得生态收益,而应该综合考虑上游地方政府惩罚值、下游地方政府惩罚值、下游地方政府对上游地方政府的补偿收益以及上游地方政府保护水资源的成本等多方面因素.     

Indirect tax harmonization and global public goods

This paper identifies conditions under which, starting from any tax-distorting equilibrium, destination- and origin-based indirect tax-harmonizing reforms are potentially Pareto improving in the presence of global public goods. The first condition (unrequited transfers between governments) requires that transfers are designed in such a way that the marginal valuations of the global public goods are equalized, whereas the second (conditional revenue changes) requires that the change in global tax revenues, as a consequence of tax harmonization, is consistent with the under/over-provision of global public goods relative to the (modified) Samuelson rule. Under these conditions, tax harmonization results in redistributing the gains from a reduction in global deadweight loss and any changes in global tax revenues according to the Pareto principle. And this is the case independently of the tax principle in place (destination or origin).     

Bribe payments under regulatory decentralization: Evidence from rights offering regulations in China

This paper investigates why and how firms’ bribe payments vary as a result of the interaction between firms and local public officials under the decentralized regulatory system for rights offerings implemented prior to 2001 in China. Using the gap between the estimated and reported total direct costs of rights offerings as a measure of firms’ bribes payments in the process of rights offering applications under this system, we find that bribe payments are positively related to local governments’ control rights, firms’ opportunity costs of refusing to pay bribes, and the severity of firms’ Jensen agency problems. We further show that after termination of the regulatory system, firms’ bribe payments are substantially reduced, and local governments’ control rights as well as the severity of firms’ Jensen agency problems can no longer explain the variation in bribe payments.     

Two Games of Interjurisdictional Competition When Local Governments Provide Industrial Public Goods

In this paper we investigate two different games of interjurisdictional competition when local governments provide public goods that benefit industry. Governments play a game either in tax rates on mobile industrial capital or in public expenditures. Although the literature suggests that competition in public expenditures is more competitive than in tax rates, this is not necessarily true in the case of industrial public goods. Moreover, in the presence of industrial public goods interjurisdictional competition may also lead to overprovision of public services.     

Government assisted earnings management in China

As the socialist system in China embraces the market economy, it has created many conflicts of interests and collusion between firms and different layers of governments. The central government in China sets regulations to ensure the quality of firms listed in the capital market, while local governments engage in inter-jurisdictional competition for more capital, and their interests are aligned with listed firms through the stringent IPO quota system. This paper examines how local governments in China help listed firms in earnings management to circumvent the central government’s regulation. We find that local governments provide subsidies to help firms boost their earnings above the regulatory threshold of rights offering and delisting. Moreover, this collusion between government and listed firms in earnings management exists mainly in firms controlled by local governments.     

Taxation without representation: local fiscal response to intergovernmental transfers in China

This paper studies the effects of intergovernmental transfers on local public spending in China, an authoritarian country where local politicians are not largely accountable to residents. The identification exploits a discontinuity from the central government’s designation of National Poor Counties. We find that additional transfers to county governments increase local public spending one-for-one. We further confirm that counties receiving additional transfers do not reduce the effective tax burden borne by firms. The results echo the empirical anomaly of the flypaper effect found in developed economies under democratic governments.     

GOVERNMENT SPENDING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: Trends, Causes, and Consequences

Throughout the twentieth century governments have been spendingever larger proportions of national income. Three issues arisein discussions about the growth of such spending as it pertainsto developing countries: How does it compare with expenditurein industrial nations? What explains the growth in spendingby developing country governments? And what are the effectson economic growth? Government expenditure as a share of GDPin low- and middle-income countries, on average, is lower thancomparable shares in industrial market economies and, with fewexceptions, is growing. Many factors, including ideology, demographics,a positive income elasticity for public goods, the rising costof public goods relative to private goods, and perhaps developmenttheory and practice, explain this growth. As for the relationshipbetween government expenditure and economic growth, the empiricalevidence does not reveal any strong correlation. The size ofgovernment may engender strong ideological debate, but the positionthat the aggregate level of government expenditure is a significantdeterminant of growth rates receives little support.      

地方政府债券的经济影响分析

地方政府债券的发行对经济的影响涉及宏观、微观、金融、财政、区域发展等多个层面.其在缓解地方财政困难的同时也可能助长地方政府负债冲动,对中央财政的影响则取决于地方政府自身的偿付能力及发债规模的控制.在微观层面.地方政府债券的发行会促进地方性公共品的供给,同时也有利于实现公共品受益的代际公平;在宏观层面,有助于克服利用外资的本币化倾向,规避汇率风险问题.此外,地方政府债券的推出也有助于完善金融市场和金融体系,其对区域经济发展的影响取决于发债地区的选择标准.在推出地方债券的同时,必须通过审慎的管理来防范其风险.     

Optimal Design of Intergovernmental Grants Under Asymmetric Information

This paper develops a theoretical explanation why it may be optimal for higher-level governments to pay categorical block grants or closed-ended matching grants to local governments. We consider a federation with two types of local governments which differ in the cost of providing public goods. The federal government redistributes between jurisdictions, but cannot observe the type of a jurisdiction. In this asymmetric information setting, it is shown that the second-best optimum can be implemented with the help of categorical block grants and closed-ended matching grants, but not with unconditional block grants or open-ended matching grants. JEL Code: H77, D82     

论对低保户进行分类管理的必要性与可行性

由于缺乏一套有效的收入监测机制,低保户隐性收入很难核实,导致低保户是＂只进不退＂,随之而来的是通过骗取低保户资格以享受低保金待遇的骗保行为日趋严重。本文建议借鉴中国银监会主席刘明康＂不看报表看三表＂的思路,通过水、电、气消耗多少来间接核查低保户的准确收入,以便使己不符合低保资格的低保户退保。同时建议根据低保户的收入状况,把低保户分为A、B、C三类来管理,低保金及优惠救助政策也分成三档,这样就可以参照当地低保待遇标准,实行低保金差（缺）额发放,差（缺）多少就发多少,这不仅可节省低保金,有助控制和减少骗保行为,还可使低保户成为节能减排的＂急先锋＂和＂排头兵＂。     

Reciprocity in Corporate Tax Compliance—Evidence from Ozone Pollution

In a tax—public goods reciprocity framework between citizens and the state, managers view taxes as a payment to the government in exchange for public goods, and hence they adjust their willingness to pay taxes as public good quality changes. We show that corporate tax planning intensity increases with ground-level ozone pollution. Revisions in ozone pollution regulations cause counties that failed the revised and more stringent standards to reduce ozone pollution. Consequently, firms headquartered in these counties reduced corporate tax planning intensity relative to firms in other counties. The ozone-tax link varies in the predicted directions with public attention to pollution, potential welfare loss due to ozone, managers’ stakeholder orientation, taxpayers’ polluting status, political preferences, and civic norms. We also find consistent results for Superfund cleanups of hazardous waste sites. Our research sheds light on reciprocity as a potential mechanism influencing corporate tax compliance.     

Local Does as Local Is: Information Content of the Geography of Individual Investors' Common Stock Investments

Using data on the investments a large number of individual investors made through a discount broker from 1991 to 1996, we find that households exhibit a strong preference for local investments. We test whether this locality bias stems from information or from simple familiarity. The average household generates an additional annualized return of 3.2% from its local holdings relative to its nonlocal holdings, suggesting that local investors can exploit local knowledge. Excess returns to investing locally are even larger among stocks not in the S&P 500 index (firms for which information asymmetries between local and nonlocal investors may be largest).     

现实政府供给公共物品的困惑——从公共物品供给效率的考察

以一个仁慈的、完全信息型政府供给公共物品的效率标准模型为基准,就不同预算约束下公共物品政府供给的效率及原因进行分析.比较不同预算约束、经济人假设情况下政府供给的效率.在经济人政府假设下,不论软预算约束还是硬预算约束,政府提供公共物品都存在效率问题:会出现过多和过少的供给,从而产生公共物品的供给浪费或不足,政府难以提供最适的公共物品水平.     

税费替代:增值税减税、非税收入征管与企业投资

通过减税促进企业投资和提振宏观经济是近年来中国税收制度改革的重要目标,但减税政策的实际效果却存在争议。本文利用2009年增值税转型改革,研究了减税对地方政府税费收入和企业非税负担的影响,从税费替代的角度揭示非税负担变动如何影响企业固定资产投资。研究发现:(1)增值税转型在减税的同时提高了地方政府非税收入并加重了企业非税负担,地方财政收入受增值税转型冲击越大,企业非税负担上升越明显。(2)上述应主要体现在小型、微型和民营企业上,大中型、非民营企业的非税负担未发生明显变化。(3)非税负担上升会显著抑制小型、微型和民营企业的固定资产投资,促使小型微型和民营企业通过持有更多现金和减少流动性负债来应对税费负担不确定性。本文有助于理解减税政策对小型微型和民营企业非税负担的溢出效应及其影响,为通过减税降费促进投资和提振经济提供经验支撑。     

Energy Price Shocks and the Macroeconomy: The Role of Consumer Durables

We create a model with a distinction between investment in consumer durables and capital goods, as well as energy use by households and firms, to evaluate the importance of energy price shocks for output fluctuations. Simulation results indicate that this economy has a smaller proportion of output fluctuations attributable to energy price shocks than one without durable goods and household energy use. We show that an energy price hike is absorbed by reducing investment in durables more than in fixed capital. This rebalancing effect cushions the hit to future production. Thus, productivity shocks remain the prime driver for output fluctuations.     

地方税收竞争中公共品供给的动态博弈及应对思路

地方税收竞争在中国具有普遍性,但与市场经济发达国家的税收竞争又存在着内容上的差异.从博弈分析来看,博弈参与主体在完全信息条件下,其最优结果是进行地方税收竞争且投入于公共品.但从中国的现实情况来看,公共品供给不足是源于制度上提供的潜在利益驱动地方政府偏离其应有责任.因此,减少政府层次、合理配给地方政府相对独立的税权、制定良好的公共支出政策是促使经济进入良性循环、地方税收竞争走向规范、有序的重要制度安排.     

Shared Tax Sources and Public Expenditures

This paper deals with a specific vertical assignment of public functions in a federation: Two levels of government share both the same tax source and expenditure on a productivity increasing public service. We consider surplus maximizing Leviathan governments which provide public services in order to increase their potential tax base. The Nash equilibrium is characterized by overtaxation and relative to surplus maximization—depending on whether or not the public goods are sufficiently complementary with the entire tax base—either underprovision or overprovision of the public service. The implications of these results, in terms of welfare and potential use for earmarking taxes are also considered.     

地方政企合谋与信贷资源配置

通过建立地方政企合谋与信贷资源配置的数理模型来研究分权下地方政府干预信贷资源配置服务于地方政府的自身效用,结果表明地方政企合谋是地方政府在直接干预力度减弱的情况下,间接干预金融资源配置的一个重要的途径;且地方政府官员的政治晋升是助长这些干预行为的关键因素。若将发现地方政企合谋与政府地方官员政治晋升与否直接相关,即能起到威慑作用,并能形成最优的防范地方政企合谋契约。