地方财政支出的空间外部效应研究

Testing Spatial Spillover of Fiscal Expenditure

财政行为的空间外部性是应用公共经济学的重要研究课题。目前,国内既有文献多是集中于对税收竞争的考察,对于地方财政支出空间外部效应的研究还非常缺乏。依据Case和Rosen(1993)的思路,本文采用空间计量方法对我国地方财政支出的空间外部性进行了经验研究。结果表明,总体上看,地方财政支出具有显著的正外部效应,但进一步对建设支出和教育科技支出这两个细分项目的分析则显示,后者并未表现出显著的空间外部效应。上述结论的得出为最优分权规模的确定提供了一个新的观察视角。

Spatial interaction among local governments in fiscal decision is receiving increasing attention in the applied public economics literature. However, the existing literature has only focused on tax competition, lacking attention on spatial spillover effect of fiscal expenditure. Following Case and Rosen （1993）, we employ spatial econometric technique analyzing the spatial spillover of provincial fiscal expenditure in China. The findings show that fiscal expenditure, as a whole, exhibits a significant positive spillover effect. But further research on two sub-categories reveals different result. These findings provide a new perspective on the determination of optimal fiscal decentralization.