公共经济学研究主题与方法发展趋势分析

Analysis of the development trends of public economics research topics and methods:taking NBER working paper as an example

美国国家经济研究局是全球最具影响力的私营、非营利性研究机构之一,其公共经济学研究项目中的工作论文能较为客观地反映相关研究主题和方法的前沿发展方向。鉴于此,采用NBER工作论文数据库中1990—2015年的统计数据,从定量与定性角度进行归纳总结。研究发现:公共经济学论文数量呈逐年上升趋势,研究范围从税收和政府支出拓展到教育(投入的效率和产出)、监管(环境、房地产和金融等)、老龄化问题以及医疗保障等领域;虽然对个人税收问题日益关注,但研究重点逐渐从税收转向政府支出;行为财政学、社会保障和宏观经济事件的影响已构成近期研究的三大主题;微观计量方法、结构化模型的广泛应用以及实验经济学实验和实地实验的兴起,使其研究方法不断趋于完善,并朝着多样化的方向发展。

The National Bureau of Economic Research is one of the most influential private and non-profit research institutions in the world,whose working papers of public economics research programs can objectively reflect the leading development direction of the relevant research topics and methods. Based on this,the paper uses NBER working paper database statistics from1990 to 2015,to summarize the data from the quantitative and qualitative points of view. The study finds：the number of public economics papers shows an increasing trend year by year;the research scope is from tax and government expenditure to education（ the efficiency of investment and output）,supervision（ environment,real estate and finance,etc.）,the problem of aging and health care and other fields. Although growing concern has been shown about personal tax issues,research focus gradually shifts from tax to government spending. Behavioral public finance,social security and the impact of macroeconomic events constitute three major themes of recent studies. Micro-econometrics method,wide application of structural model,the rise of experimental economics experiment and field experiment have perfected the research methods continuously and developed towards the direction of diversification.