测量中国政府的行政成本

Measurement of the Chinese Government Administrative Costs

中国政府的行政成本向来为舆论界和学术界共同关注。本文从澄清行政成本概念入手,并利用中国官方提供的相关财政指标及数据,来探讨如何测量中国政府的行政成本问题。论文对2007年之前中国财政统计中出现的相关指标"行政管理费"、"其他(税务等)部门事业费"、2007年以来出现的"一般公共服务"进行系统的考察,发现它们反映的主要是各级政府的中央行政成本。论文还对改革开放以来中国政府行政成本规模的扩张进行了简要的报告和分析。

Administrative costs of the Chinese government have attracted a lot of attention from public opinion and social science scholars. This paper begins with a classification of administrative or overhead costs, and then examines the fiscal indicators and statistics utilized by the Chinese authority to record and report administrative costs of governments at different levels. Specifically,we examine carefully government administrative expenditure and operating expense in other departments, the two fiscal indicators for administrative costs appearing in pre-2007 fiscal statistics, and expenditures for general public services, an indicator for administrative costs in post-2006 fiscal statistics, with a finding that they all reflect costs of central administration. The paper also reports and analyzes expansion of administrative costs of the Chinese government during the reform era.