江苏省县域财政竞争与区域经济效率

County Fiscal Competition and Economic Efficiency in Jiangsu Province

地方政府间的财政竞争是促使我国区域经济快速发展的重要力量,但不论在理论还是经验层面,其对经济效率的作用仍是莫衷一是。基于此,文章运用DEA局,并以Tobit方法构建面板计量模型,探寻财政竞争与经济效率关联的内在原理与演化机制,以期提供一个过往理论的整合逻辑,并为政府制定合理财政政策提供启示。主要研究结论如下:财政竞争整体上能够促进区域科技、管理水平提升与产业规模扩张,从而对经济效率有显著正向作用;特定时期内,财政竞争对于区域经济效率的作用存在二次型结构;财政竞争对于区域经济效率的作用存在区域与时点差异,不发达地区的财政竞争对技术效率作用更强,发达地区财政竞争对规模效率的作用更强。文章认为这种财政竞争与经济效率时空结构转换实际是由区域经济发展中纯技术效率与规模效率内在转换规律导致的,地方政府的财政政策导向应由此而定。另外,文章对贸易水平、产业结构、公共服务、城镇化、人口、税收水平等控制变量的作用进行了验证,它们大多也表现出较为明显的时空依赖现象,但并未改变财政竞争的显著性。

The fiscal competition among local governments is an important force for the rapid development of China’s regional economy.However,its role in economic efficiency is still uncertain in theory and experience.Thus,this paper uses DEA and GIS methods to expound the spatial and temporal pattern of financial competition and economic efficiency regarding 58 county units in Jiangsu Province.Also,a panel model is constructed by Tobit method to explore the inherent principle and evolution mechanism of financial competition and economic efficiency.It will help to provide an integrated logic of past theories and offer inspiration for the government to formulate a sound fiscal policy. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows.Financial competition as a whole can promote the improvement of regional science and technology management as well as industrial scale expansion,thus having a significantly positive impact on economic efficiency;There exists a quadratic structure in the impact of fiscal competition on regional economic efficiency for a specific period;There is regional and time difference in the impact of fiscal competition on regional economic efficiency;and fiscal competition has a stronger impact on technical efficiency in underdeveloped regions and on scale efficiency in developed regions.This paper argues that this spatial-temporal structural transformation of fiscal competition and economic efficiency is actually caused by the inherent conversion of pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency in regional economic development. The fiscal policy orientation of local governments should be determined accordingly.In addition,it verifies the role of control variables such as trade level,industrial structure,public service,urbanization,population,and taxation level.Most of them also show obvious time and space dependence,but they have not changed the significant competition of fiscal competition.