分权体制下的民主参与、政府响应程度和公共品供需偏差

文章考察了当前背景下政府对地方民众公共品需求偏好的响应能力,利用1998～2008年期间的公共支出样本值测算了中国地方公共支出偏差指数,并引入不同选区人大代表指标作为民主参与的工具变量,以此体现政府响应能力。实证结果发现,财政分权、民主参与和公共品供需偏差三个变量之间存在着显著的内生关联;分权体制导致了政府公共品供给扭曲,而民主参与则部分抵消了公共品供需偏差。

Democratic Participation, Governmental Response and Supply and Demand Deviation of Public Goods

This paper examines the government’s response to citizen’s demand for public goods using China’s public spending records from 1998-2008 to calculate the deviation of local public expenditure. The paper also takes indicators from different NPC constituencies as the instrumental variable of democratic participation to reflect the government’s response capability. The empirical results show that a significant endogenous association exists between the three objective variables of fiscal decentralization, democratic participation and the supply and demand deviation of public goods. We find fiscal decentralization has lead to distortions in the supply of public goods, and democratic participation can reduce this distortion.