财政改革与地方政府支出激励

Fiscal Reform and Incentives for Local Governments Spending

第二代财政分权理论提出一个重要问题,分权体制如何设计才能规避其塑造的激励结构引致下级政府扭曲的财政治理行为。本文以中国省以下财政体制改革的重要创新实践——省直管县财政改革为对象,基于1768个县级样本数据的实证研究,试图对这一问题做出回答。结论显示:省直管县财政改革不仅激励了县级政府支出扩张行为,而且通过增强县级政府被救助预期进一步软化了县级政府业已存在的软预算约束。省直管县财政改革之所以会软化县级政府预算约束,主要与改革的制度设计有关。作为一项具有分权性质的财政改革,除了极个别省(自治区)在改革制度设计上做到财力与事责相匹配,基本都是只关注省市县三级财政收入划分。这种制度安排会显著增强县级政府被救助预期,进而激励其更加软化的预算约束。相比较而言,财力与事责匹配的财政改革不仅不会出现县级政府预算约束软化效应,反而有硬化县级政府预算约束的作用。只关注收入划分的省直管县财政改革之所以会增强县级政府软预算约束,主要源于共同池机制、监管弱化机制及竞争压力机制。本文的实证发现不仅使新阶段财政改革深化可以汲取过去改革的重要经验,而且为当前中国地方政府性债务治理,优化财政资金直达机制提供了新思路。

The second generation of fiscal decentralization(SGFD)raises an important question:how is a decentralized system designed to avoid distorting lower-level governments’behaviors?This paper takes the province-managing-counties(PMC)fiscal reform as a case which is considered to be an innovative practice of the local fiscal system reform in China.Based on the comparative analysis of the reform documents issued by the provincial governments,this paper constructs a panel data of 1768 county-level samples to empirically test whether the PMC fiscal reform has softened the budget constraints of county governments.In China,the PMC fiscal reform implemented by most provincial regions(hereinafter referred to as provinces),with the exception of Zhejiang Province and Hainan Province,was initiated at the beginning of the 21 st century and implemented independently by provincial governments.There are two main purposes for each province to carry out the PMC fiscal reform.One is to solve the fiscal difficulties of county governments,and the other is to develop the county economy.Although there are differences in the design of the reform among provinces,the reform is basically consistent with the fiscal system,that is,the original fiscal system that the provincial finance manages the municipal finance and the municipal finance manages the county finance,is changed into the new fiscal system that the provincial finance manages the municipal finance and the county finance.After the reform,the county finance has been given the same power as the municipal finance.Among them,the county-level fiscal difficulties are solved by enhancing the share of county governments’revenue and increasing fiscal transfers to county governments.The above two objectives of the reform determine that the PMC fiscal reform has the basic attributes of the decentralized reform and the basic features of aiding the subordinate governments.The PMC fiscal reform independently implemented by provinces in China provides an opportunity for us to study the relationship between the decentralized reform and budget soft constraints of the subordinate governments.Following Kornai et al.(2003)’s classic definition of budget soft constraints,this paper improves Padovano(2014)’s approach and constructs a variable for the expectation of being assisted by the county government.Based on this,this paper empirically analyzes the following two issues in turn:as a decentralized reform,whether the PMC fiscal reform,as predicted by the decentralization theory,in addition to directly incentive county governments to expand the expenditure,will further encourage them to increase fiscal expenditure by strengthening county governments’expectation of being assisted?Do different designs of the PMC fiscal reform have different incentive effects on the expansion of county governments’expenditure?The results confirm that,in China,the PMC fiscal reform not only encourages county governments to expand fiscal expenditure,but also further enhances the incentive effect of county governments’expenditure expansion by enhancing the expectation of being assisted.However,in areas where the reform can clarifies income distribution and expenditure responsibilities,the PMC fiscal reform is not to strengthen the budget soft constraints of county governments.On the contrary,it plays a role in hardening the budget constraints.Our further research shows that the incentive to soften budget constraints of county governments brought by the PMC fiscal reform mainly stems from three mechanisms,namely,the common pool,the weak supervision,and the competitive pressure.Because the PMC fiscal reform has given county governments the greater financial power by flattening the financial hierarchy,it has increased the competition among county governments while expanding the common pool to be used and the supervision range of provincial finance.This paper has two innovations.First,the variable of county governments’expectation of being assisted is constructed.Secondly,based on the reform documents,different system designs of the PMC are distinguished,which enriches the empirical evidence of the SGFD.In addition,the decentralization attribute of the PMC fiscal reform and its incentive mechanisms are revealed.