地方政府债务风险的内涵与生成:一个文献综述及权责时空分离下的思考

The connotation and formation of the risks in local government debts:A literature review and the reflections in the light of the spatial and time separation of rights and responsibilities

针对什么是地方政府债务风险,本文将其归纳为形成危害预期的债务超常规增长,通过相关文献分析,指出经济发展、财政体制、管理制度和政府行为等虽然促进了地方政府债务增长,但并不是导致债务风险生成的真正动因,一个重要的原因是地方政府并非是"责任政府"。实际上,我国地方政府债务固有地存在权责时空分离,与之相伴随的是地方政府举债权力的无约束扩张,从而不断演化为债务风险,其内在动力包括非理性的利益动机、债务责任转移预期和债务责任预期破灭。而在权责时空分离难以改变的情况下,防范地方政府债务风险,需要强化地方政府举债的社会理性行为、降低地方政府债务责任转移预期、减少地方政府债务偿还责任违约等。

What are local government debts？ We generalize them as abnormal growth in debts which will lead to risk ex- pectations. Through analysis on relative literatures, this article points out that although economic development, fiscal system, management system and government behavior promote the growth in local government debts, they are not the real factors which form debt risks. One of the most important reasons is that local government is not a＂responsible government＂. As a matter of fact, there is spatial and time separation of rights and responsibilities for Chinese local government debts naturally. Local government can expand debts without limitations. As a result, such limitless expansion evolves into debt risks whose inner driving force includes irrational interest motivation, transfer expectation of liabilities and the burst of such expectation. Considering hard changes in the spatial and time separation of rights and responsibilities, to prevent the risks in local government debts, we need to strengthen social rational behavior of local government debt issue, lower the expectation of local government debt transfer, and reduce the default in repayment.