非经济性公共物品需求的实证检验——基于省级面板数据

文章利用2003—2010年中国内地地区29个省(自治区、直辖市)的面板数据,估计了4类非经济性公共物品居民需求函数,实证检验与公共支出需求相关的因素,并分析非经济性公共物品的政府供给与居民需求的匹配指数.实证结果显示:非经济性公共物品需求与人均收入,人口规模和城市规模比重正相关.收入增加对教育,医疗和环境保护需求也在不断增加.居民税收负担增加,居民对公共服务的偏好就越小,但从总体上来讲,非经济公共物品供给矛盾在逐步缓解.     

The Effects of Fiscal Consolidation and Welfare Composition of Spending on Electoral Outcomes: Evidence from US Gubernatorial Elections between 1978 and 2006

This study attempts to make a contribution to the field of spending aspects of fiscal policy and their impacts on electoral outcome. Due to varying degrees of financial responsibilities and commitments to provide public goods and services, US state governments serve as a perfectly natural laboratory to test the electoral significance of fiscal policies. We adopt a probit model, with several specifications, to determine significant impacts of fiscal consolidation and increases in welfare spending on US gubernatorial elections from 1978 to 2006. The analyses show that voters are more concerned about the increase in debt than current budget deficits. An increase in welfare spending is negatively associated with reelection. Moreover, the impact of taxation on gubernatorial elections turns out to be insignificant. In particular, findings suggest that the political business cycle model does not hold true in US gubernatorial elections. Expansionary fiscal policy right before the election may not have crucial impacts on the chances of an incumbent winning the election.     

Public sector efficiency in transition and beyond: evidence from Czech local governments

This article provides the first comparison of public sector efficiency in and beyond transition. We compare the comprehensive efficiency scores of 202 local governments in the Czech Republic in the transition period of 1995–1998 and the post-transition period of 2005–2008 and identify the period-specific determinants of local government efficiency. We observe convergence to the best practice frontier but also a growing efficiency gap between small and large governments. In both periods, municipal size and the main fiscal variables qualitatively affect efficiency in the same direction and in line with the fiscal stress hypothesis. Left-wing ideology is only robustly associated with cost inefficiency in the transition period. The geographic distances begin to matter for efficiency only in the post-transition period.     

Public financing of the arts in England

The paper describes the method, amount and composition of public financing of the arts and heritage services in England during the 1990s. This offers the background to a discussion of how far the rationale for government financing for such services can rely on arguments derived from welfare economics. The presence of ‘market failure’ has been widely accepted by successive governments and their advisers, but attempts to remove it have encountered the familiar problems of ensuring allocative and technical efficiency when production subsidies are the main policy instrument. Special attention is devoted to the policy dilemmas that are likely to arise in the years ahead in the performing arts, heritage and broadcasting.     

Public engagement through social media: the spending review experience

This paper, relying on three empirical cases of spending reviews carried out in Europe, investigates how social media has been used to engage citizens in spending review processes. The authors explain the differences in levels of engagement between the use of social media (Web 2.0 tools) compared to traditional Web 1.0 tools. Finally, they discuss how government might genuinely listen to its citizens and work with them.