自动稳定器与相机抉择:财政政策宏观调控机制的权衡与完善

Automatic Stabilizer vs. Discretion: Weighing and Perfecting on Macro-control Mechanism of Fiscal Policy

财政政策应如何在自动稳定器和相机抉择之间进行有效权衡,一直存在较大的分歧。本文的研究表明,由于内生的制度缺陷,自动稳定器无法单独胜任稳定经济的角色;而缺乏约束的自由裁量行为又使得相机抉择具有较大的赤字和政治周期风险;尽管一些经济体采取了一些财政规则,但经验证据并没有表明规则约束达到了预期的目标;相反,在一些经济体,财政规则反而引致了更大的隐性财政风险。鉴于两种机制各自的优弊,为在提高财政政策稳定绩效的同时保持市场尽可能高的效率,财政政策的宏观调控应首先发挥自动稳定器的基础性调节作用,在此基础上,充分发挥相机抉择的灵活性以弥补自动稳定器的不足。为提高相机抉择的有效性,必须采取过程控制,而非目前被广泛采用的数量控制。

There exists large divergence in how to weigh automatic stabilizer and discretion. This paper illustrates that automatic stabilizer is unable to stabilize economy fully because of endogenous system flaws and that discretion short of constraints may lead to deficit and political cycle risks. Although some countries adopted fiscal rules, the target of stabilizing economy hasn't been realized in these countries, on the contrary, fiscal rules have brought about bigger recessive fiscal risks. In view of respective advantages and disadvantages above, in order to enhance the stabilizing effects of fiscal policy, automatic stabilizer must be seen as a foundational macro-control, discretion is only used as a supplement. Moreover, it is very necessary to constraint discretion by process-control rather than the quantity control which is widely used at present.