分税制改革与中国城镇房价水平--基于省级面板的经验证据

Tax Sharing Reform and Urban Housing Prices in China:Evidence from Provincial Panel Data

本文将分税制改革、土地财政和房价水平置于同一框架来研究推动中国城镇房价持续快速上涨的制度性因素。经验事实表明,较高的房价水平总是与较大的土地财政规模相联系,而土地财政的形成与1994年的分税制改革密切相关。在对上述经验事实进行背景分析的基础上,本文运用2000—2008年的省级面板数据进行实证分析,结果表明,在控制了经济基本面、城市化率和地区竞争等潜在影响房价的因素后,分税制背景下逐年扩大的财政分权度是引发地方政府追求土地财政的制度性因素;地方政府的土地财政规模对中国城镇房价水平的高涨具有显著的正向影响,并且这种正向效应会随着财政分权度的扩大而被强化。本文的估计结果对财政分权变量的选取、估计方法的选择和估计函数形式的设定均是非常稳健的。

This paper investigates the institutional evidences which push up the urban housing prices in China through examining the relationship among tax sharing reform, land finance and housing prices. The data say that the higher housing prices are correlated with the larger scale of land finance of subnational governments, mean- while, the formation of which is closely correlated with fiscal reform started in 1994. Using provincial panel data from 2000 through 2008, this paper empirically researches on the formation of the land finance and the effects of land finance on the urban housing prices in China, respectively. Our study finds that the fiscal imbalance based on the tax sharing system is one of significant factors that induce subnational governments to pursue land fi- nance. When controlling potential factors affecting housing prices, the scale of land finance has substantially positive impact on urban housing prices, and this positive effect will be strengthened duo to the expansion of de- gree of fiscal decentralization. Our results are robust to replacement of key variables and estimation methods and a range of specification checks.