经济发展中的地方官员行为研究——基于政治晋升、财政分权与腐败的视角

本文同时考虑财政分权、政治晋升和腐败三个因素对地方官员行为的影响,进而构建了理论模型。从中得到的主要结论是,在基本模型中,地方官员对政治晋升的偏好程度越高,则其努力程度越高、腐败程度越低。而财政分权程度越高,官员的努力也越高,但对腐败水平影响却是不确定的。在进一步假设腐败会被惩罚的拓展模型中,基本模型的大部分结论都没有发生太大变化,只是分权程度的对努力的影响也变得不确定了。除此之外,我们进一步研究了,对官员腐败惩罚的力度和对官员腐败的惩罚准确程度的影响,相关命题表明,如果对官员腐败惩罚的越严厉,并且对官员腐败的惩罚越准确,官员努力水平和官员腐败程度都会变低。通过对研究结论的分析,我们还对以往文献的结果进行了重新解释。     

地方政府财政支农支出与农村居民消费——来自中国29个省市面板数据的经验证据

本文在消费者最优消费路径选择的基本框架下,构建了一个政府财政支农与农村居民消费的动态最优化模型,理论分析表明:地方政府财政支农支出的增加,对于农村居民消费水平的提高具有促进作用。基于1995-2008年的省际面板数据,采用工具变量GMM方法对该结论进行的实证检验发现:在通过多工具变量克服变量内生性之后,地方政府财政支农支出对农村居民消费具有显著的促进作用,地方政府财政支农支出每增加1%,我国农村居民消费将增加0.1367%;进一步的因素分解显示,地方政府财政支农支出对农村居民消费的平均贡献度为8.72%,且有逐年增大的趋势。此外,财政支农支出对农村居民消费的影响存在区域差异性,即财政支农支出对我国中西部地区农村居民消费的影响程度大于东部地区。     

财政分权与地方政府行为异化

作为财政体制改革的后果,财政分权导致政府间财政竞争,并改变了财政均等状况。中国国情的特殊性,尤其是官员委任制以及以经济增长为核心的地方政府官员政绩考核体系,使得政府间财政竞争更易导致地方政府财政支出结构呈现结构性扭曲。因此,制订合理的政绩考核标准,并相应调整财政体制是规范地方政府行为的当务之急。     

地方政府支出竞争与地区投资行为——中国式财政分权框架下的实证研究

中国财政分权体制下,地方政府间的财政支出竞争广泛存在。建立纳入财政支出分权、地方政府财政支出及支出竞争的企业投资决策计量模型。结论显示:地方政府财政支出横向竞争和纵向竞争对地区投资行为影响具有差异性并存在长期效应。为实现地方政府支出竞争的良性发展应将更多的资源投入到有利于提高地区整体投资环境的领域,同时继续完善中央和地方关系。     

Aging: Some Pleasant Fiscal Arithmetic

Projections of age-related public expenditure growth have raised widespread concerns about fiscal sustainability. This paper examines how total expenditure would develop under four policy rules on public expenditure growth. Some simple arithmetic of expenditure, GDP, and population is reviewed and applied in simulations for 19 OECD countries over 2000–50. A general and a specific conclusion arise from the results. Generally, long-term expenditure projections could benefit from revisiting common assumptions on non-age-related expenditure growth. Specifically, realistic gradual adjustment in non-age-related expenditures could go a long way towards maintaining fiscal sustainability under age-related spending pressures.

Can Federal Grants Mitigate Social Competition?

The European economic integration leads to increasing mobilityof factors, thereby threatening the stability of social transferprograms. This article investigates the possibility to achieveby means of voluntary matching grants both the optimal allocationof factors and the optimal level of redistribution in the presenceof factor mobility. We use a fiscal competition model a la Wildasin(1991) in which states differ in their technologies and preferencesfor redistribution. We first investigate a simple process inwhich the federal authority progressively raises the matchinggrants to the district choosing the lowest transfer and alldistricts respond optimally to the resulting change in transfersall around. This process is shown to increase efficiency ofboth production and redistribution. However, it does not guaranteethat all districts gain, nor that an efficient level of redistributionis attained. Assuming complete information among districts,we derive the willingness of each district to match the contributionof other districts and we show that the aggregate willingnessto pay for matching rates converges to zero when both the efficientlevel of redistribution and the efficient allocation of factorsare achieved. We then describe an adjustment process for thematching rates that will lead districts to the efficient outcomeand guarantee that everyone will gain. (JEL Classification:H23, H70)     

Fiscal imbalances and asymmetric adjustment under Labour and Conservative governments in the UK

This paper examines whether the political colour of an incumbent government affects the speed at which fiscal imbalances are corrected in the case of the UK. Using quarterly data, we examine whether Conservative or Labour governments are more prone to operate under a soft budget constraint and vis-à-vis i.e. to adhere to a hard budget strategy. The tests, using quarterly data, cover the period 1961–2011 and the results reported herein reveal differences in the speed at which fiscal imbalances are corrected by Labour and Conservative governments. The former are more inclined to operate under a soft budget constraint whereas the latter under a hard budget constraint.     

The effectiveness of fiscal spending in Croatia,Slovenia and Serbia: the role of trade openness and public debt level

Various structural characteristics of economies, directly or indirectly, affect the transmission from government stimuli to economic activity and determine the size of fiscal multipliers. In this article, we expand the standard Blanchard–Perotti fiscal SVAR model by incorporating the public debt and trade openness variables to assess the influence of these structural determinants on the effectiveness of fiscal spending in three selected former Yugoslav countries – Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. The results confirmed the main hypotheses, which state that public debt level and trade openness significantly affect the effectiveness of fiscal spending through the means of reduction in size of fiscal effects in all countries analysed. When comparing internationally, this reduction tends to be more evident in countries with a higher degree of average public debt level and trade openness.     

Taxation, growth, and the spirit of capitalism

This paper uses a general two-sector model of endogenous growth to examine how the spirit of capitalism affects the relation between public finance and growth. The spirit of capitalism is defined as acquisitive personal objectives. We find that if the spirit of capitalism is present, an increase in the share of government spending in output reduces the long-run growth rate. The negative relationship between fiscal spending and growth is consistent with empirical evidence.     

Do dictatorships redistribute more?

This paper examines the effect of political institutions on fiscal redistribution for a country-level panel from 1960–2010. Using data on Gini coefficients before and after government intervention, we apply a measure of effective fiscal redistribution that reflects the effect of taxes and transfers on income inequality. Our findings clearly indicate that non-democratic regimes demonstrate significantly greater direct fiscal redistribution. Subsequently, we employ fiscal data in an attempt to enlighten this puzzling empirical finding. We find that dictatorial regimes rely more heavily on cash transfers that exhibit a direct impact on net inequality and consequently on the difference between market and net inequality (i.e., effective fiscal redistribution), whereas democratic regimes devote a larger amount of resources to public inputs (health and education) that may influence market inequality but not the difference between market and net inequality per se. We argue that the driving force behind the observed differences within the pattern on government spending and effective fiscal redistribution is that democratic institutions lead survival-oriented leaders to care more for the private market, and thus to follow policies that enhance the productivity of the whole economy.