地方政府的税收竞争和标杆竞争——基于地市级数据的实证研究

Local Governments'Tax Competition and Yardstick Competition:An Empirical Study Based on Prefecture-level Data

以我国的财税体制和政治体制为依据,本文利用税收类别、换届周期、行政级别等因素构建识别策略,在此基础上建立面板空间计量模型,并使用2005—2011年地市级数据检验地方政府间税收策略互动的成因。结果发现,标杆竞争是导致地方政府间税收策略互动的主要原因,税收竞争是相对次要的原因。本文的边际贡献体现在两个方面:一是基于制度背景考察地方政府税收策略互动的成因;二是发现地方政府间的标杆竞争是引发税收策略互动的主要原因。

Starting from fiscal and political institutions, we put forward three estimation strategies based on the categories of taxes, election cycle and administrative levels of cities respectively. Then we specify spatial econometric models with panel data, and estimate them with prefectureqevel data from 2005 to 2011. The results show that there exist strategic mimicking competitions among prefecture-level governments, which can mostly be accounted by the local officials＇ pursuit for political purposes through yardstick competition. Compared with existing studies, this paper, exploiting China-specific fiscal and political institutions, of- fers a new explanation for tax strategic interaction of China＇s local governments.