对外开放与地方政府规模:基于省级面板数据的实证分析

Opening-up and the Size of Local Government: An Empirical Analysis Based on Provincial Panel Data

本文回顾总结了国际政治经济学对于经济开放程度和政府规模的几个主要理论阐释。利用1992年到2009年中国省级面板数据,我们采用回归分析检验了对外贸易与地方政府财政收支规模的变化关系。我们发现,随着对外开放程度的扩大,省级政府的支出和收入都有了不同程度的增长。我们认为,实证分析的初步结论支持了理论界关于对外贸易扩大政府规模的假说,并且反映了经济活动部门间转移对财政收入的影响。

This article reviewed several streams of international political economic interpreta- tions on the linkage between economic openness and the size of the government. A regression a- nalysis based on the provincial panel data of China from 1992 to 2009 was used to examine the changing relationship between foreign trade and fiscal scale of local governments. The results re- vealed that as the level of economic openness rose both the expenditure and the revenue of provin- cial governments increased to varying degrees. The empirical analysis offers preliminary support to the hypothesis that increasing foreign trade openness leads to expansion in the size of the gov- ernment, and suggests that interdepartmental transfer of economic activities have important im- pact on fiscal revenues.