中国省级预算中的非正式制度:一个交易费用理论框架

Informal Institutions in Chinese Provincial Budgeting: a Theoretical Framework of Transaction Cost Theory

运用交易费用经济学 ,本文研究了中国省级预算中非正式制度出现的原因及其主要形式。本文的主要观点是 :中国省级预算中存在的非正式制度是省级政治中的政治家发展出来解决他们制定和实施预算合同时所面临的交易费用问题的。主要的非正式制度包括三种横向非正式制度 ,即预算产权、部分等级制和完全等级制 ,以及围绕着这三种横向非正式制度而形成的“以关系为基础”的纵向非正式制度。

This paper applies transaction cost economics to study why informal institutions appear in Chinese provincial budgeting and to identify their major forms. The basic argument is that informal institutions are designed by provincial politicians to solve transaction cost problems they face in creating and enforcing budgetary contracts. There are three major horizontal informal institutions, i.e., budgetary property right, partial hierarchy, and full hierarchy, and one vertical informal institution, i.e., personal-connection-based budgeting.