中国的财政分权与小学义务教育

Fiscal Decentralization and Compulsory Primary Education in China

主流的财政分权理论一般认为,通过“用手投票”和“用脚投票”两种机制可以提高教育、卫生、社会保障等方面的社会福利水平。本文将这一理论应用于1978年以来的财政分权改革与中国小学义务教育的案例,发现财政分权并没有增加小学义务教育的有效供给。出现这一结果的原因是,西方通行的财政分权促进社会福利水平提高的两种机制在中国并不发挥作用,尤其是人口流动障碍及其地区性差异导致地方政府行为向追求资本投资与经济增长率的方向转变,导致各地区激烈的财政竞争并相应挤占了义务教育等外部性较强的准公共产品性质的财政支出。本文还发现,财政分权对富裕地区与贫困地区经济增长的影响是不一样的,它推动了富裕地区的经济增长而抑制了后者。

According to mainstream fiscal decentralization theory, the level of social welfare in education, health care and social security will be improved by“voting with one's hands”and“voting with one's feet.”However, an analysis of this theory of fiscal decentralization and the case of compulsory primary education in China since 1978 shows that the former did not improve the effective supply of the latter. The authors hold that this is because the two mechanisms that improve social welfare by fiscal decentralization commonly applied in Western countries do no exist in China. In addition, the difficulties in population flow and regional gaps direct local government behavior towards capital investment and economic growth, which has given rise to fierce fiscal competition between regions, causing a shrinkage of fiscal expenditure on quasi-public products with relatively strong externality, such as compulsory education. It is also observed in this paper that fiscal decentralization exerts different impacts on the economic growth of the richer and the poorer regions: while it facilitates economic growth in richer regions, it is a constraint on growth in poorer regions.