我国义务教育财政制度变革与城乡差距——基于1999-2009年省级面板数据的实证分析

Compulsory Educational Fiscal Reforms and Urban-Rural Education Inequality in China: Empirical Analysis on Provincial Panel Data

实现义务教育城乡均衡发展是当前教育财政体制改革的重要任务。本文利用1999-2009年省级面板数据建立了计量模型,并运用双重差分等方法对近期三次教育财政制度改革的效果进行实证评估,结果显示,无论是集权取向的"以县为主"和"新机制"改革,还是分权取向的"省直管县"财政改革,对于缩小义务教育经费的城乡差距均具有显著作用。考虑到义务教育经费供给的政府层级与学校之间的有效互动距离,未来应更加注重分权取向改革,不断提升县级财政的义务教育经费供给能力,同时根据各地财力状况与城乡义务教育差距的现实,相机采用集权取向的协同政策以增进分权改革的效果。

The equilibrium development of urban-rural education is a great target in financing China＇s compulsory educa- tion. This paper establish an econometric model using provincial panel data of 1999 to 2009 to test the effects of the three significant educational fiscal reforms. The findings indicate that both centralized reform, i.e. ＂county-based＂ mechanism and ＂ new＂ mechanism of rural educational finance, and decentralized reform, i.e. ＂province governing county＂ fiscal reform, have significant effects on the reduction of urban-rural inequality. Considering the interaction distance between the governments which supply the fund and schools which receive the fund, greater importance should be attached to decentralized reform, which aims at enhancing the fiscal capacities of county. Meanwhile, discretionary centralized policy could be adopted to favor the decentralized reform, according to the local circumstances of fiscal capabilities and urban-rural educational inequalities.