欧元区主权债务危机探析

为全面了解欧元区成员国的财政运转状况,以1999年欧元区成立为界将欧元区财政状况划分两个阶段:在欧元启动之初,部分欧盟国家在经济指标尚不满足加入欧元区的现实下,隐瞒其真实负债水平,为日后欧元区主权债务危机的爆发埋下了隐患;加入欧元区后,各成员国为了刺激经济增长实施扩张性的财政政策使得赤字率和债务率相继超标,对加入欧元区的最初承诺已形同虚设.在债务危机急剧恶化的背景下,德、法等欧元区核心国实施的全方位救助程序短期内对遏止主权债务危机蔓延和维护欧元区稳定起到了决定性作用.     

财政分权与绩效管理的相互关系研究

财政分权和绩效管理是目前世界上公共经济领域两个热门的改革话题。本文在梳理已有研究成果的基础上,从规范分析和实证分析两方面研究了财政分权与绩效管理之间相互促进、协调发展的关系,并提出应明确各级政府职能,深化我国财政分权,推进绩效管理的建设。     

人大对地方政府财政预算监督问题的探讨

预算是财政的核心。要构建社会主义和谐社会,必需编制和执行一个和谐的财政预算。对政府的财政预算进行监督,是宪法赋予人大的职权。引起人大对地方政府财政预算监督不力的原因是多方面的,但关键是由于民主程度不高,使人大对地方政府财政预算监督的权威性不强,监督的作用发挥不够。加强人大对地方政府财政预算的监督,关键是要推进政治体制改革,改革人大代表的选举制度和真正实行党政领导干部选举罢免制度。     

立足内需、扩大消费的财政政策研究

扩大内需一直是我国政府实现经济平稳增长的重要手段。我国一直存在的低消费、高投资的结构性矛盾,将会引发诸多经济运行风险。导致低消费格局的原因主要来自体制障碍,包括收入分配的不合理、城乡二元制结构、政府公共物品供给不足等。因此,需要财政政策在扩大内需,特别是扩大消费中有所作为。通过财政收支等手段建立“消费主导型”经济增长模式应是财政政策今后一段时期内的目标。     

Population ageing in healthcare – a minor issue? Evidence from Switzerland

Our study shows that population ageing is a relevant determinant of healthcare expenditure (HCE). This conclusion supports the popular, but recently strongly contested, view that the coming population ageing will threaten the fiscal sustainability of health systems. We contribute to this debate, first by estimating the determinants of Swiss HCE with outlier-robust dynamic regressions, and second, by projecting Swiss HCE based on the estimates produced and new population scenarios. Medical advances and GDP per capita also play a decisive role. Governments can mitigate HCE growth by improving the health status of the population and by stimulating cost-effective and productive medical advances.     

Institutionalism and Fiscal Policy at Midcentury

This article analyzes the career and contributions of Roy Blough (1901–2000) as a case study of Wisconsin institutionalism in government policy-making at midcentury. As a faculty member at Cincinnati, Chicago and Columbia, editor of the National Tax Journal, director of the research division of the U.S. Treasury and member of the Council of Economic Advisors, Blough played a significant role in the development of fiscal policy. The article also considers Blough’s contributions to tax policy and his views on Keynesian public finance. It further identifies the contributions of Wisconsin institutionalism to modern fiscal policy.     

Single currency and fiscal performance: the early Euro Area in perspective

We examine how exchange rate regimes affect fiscal discipline by investigating European countries as they transitioned from flexible to fully fixed exchange rates under the Euro. We apply the synthetic control method to estimate, for each Eurozone country, its counterfactual budget stance under flexible rates. Our evidence strongly suggests that fixing exchange rates negatively impacted negatively fiscal discipline. However, effects were not homogeneous, as they were mediated by political factors. For example, countries where policymakers faced a longer political horizon and operated within a more cohesive political environment, managed to perform better in terms of fiscal discipline.     

A multiregional model of China and its application

China's rapid economic transformation since 1979 has been accompanied by a stark regional disparity with the coastal provinces integrating swiftly into the world markets while inland regions lagging far behind in the industrialisation process. The growth imbalance has placed China's provinces into different stages of development and called for different policy responses to deal with different challenges they are facing. Similarly, a national policy initiated by the central government is likely to be interpreted and implemented in different ways when local governments take into consideration the different conditions in their localities. Therefore, it would be extremely valuable for policy makers and researchers to have an analytical tool that is capable of studying interactions among the provincial economies and the dynamic relationship between the centre and local governments. The multiregional econometric model of China presented in this paper is the first attempt to provide such a tool. The pioneering model consists of over 1200 equations, covering 30 provinces of China that are linked by inter-regional flows of goods and services. The model is used to study the impact of fiscal recentralisation in the 1990s. The counterfactual simulation results show that when China's central government diverted tax revenue from provincial governments, it achieved higher budgetary revenue for the central government but at the expense of lower overall budgetary revenue and slower economic growth.     

论分税制下财政转移支付与地方财政努力差异——基于功能与地区多重分类考察的另类荷兰病分析

文章主要研究分税制下政府间转移支付与地区财政努力差异的关系.通过理论模型推导和对转移支付的实证检验发现:中国现行转移支付制度在总体上抑制了地方政府的财政努力.就区域效果而言,转移支付在促进东部发达省份财政努力的同时,抑制了中、西部落后地区的财政努力;就转移支付的功能类型而言,以税收返还为主的条件性转移支付会激励地方政府努力征税,而非条件性转移支付,包括财力性和专项转移支付将不同程度地抑制地方财政努力.这就产生了挤出效应与另类"荷兰病"的问题.     

Income and substitution effects of fiscal policy on work effort

The focus of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the impact on work effort of changes in government purchases financed with lump‐sum taxes, in a neoclassical framework, with respect to four industrialised countries. Second, it reconsiders the expenditure–work effort relationship in a broader conceptual context that allows for distortionary taxation and a disaggregation of the income and substitution effects. Our findings are shown to cast doubt on the empirical plausibility of the prevailing (neoclassical and New Keynesian) models which seem to rely heavily on the lump‐sum tax notion, thus ignoring the substitution effects of distortionary taxation.