撤县设区后地方财力增强了吗?

Has Local Governments’ Revenue Increased After the County-to-District Reform?

撤县设区是近年来我国推动新型城镇化建设的重要途径,本文基于2008—2016年的地级市面板数据,使用多期双重差分法,实证检验了撤县设区改革对地级市税收收入的影响效应。实证结果表明,在控制了经济增长变量后,撤县设区改革显著降低了地级市的税收收入,这一影响具有动态效应。在税种当中,企业所得税的税收收入下降最为明显。而且对于撤县设区改革强度越大的样本,其税收收入下降更多。这主要是因为撤县设区改革后,原县级政府税收激励程度下降,进而减少了税收努力程度,从而导致税收收入的减少。本文的研究结果有助于理解省以下政府层级调整对地方政府行为和地区财力带来的影响,为进一步完善市、区两级政府收入划分和分成提供了经验证据。

The county-to-district reform is an important way to promote new urbanization in China in recent years.Based on the panel data of prefecture-level cities from 2008 to 2016,using the multi-period difference-indifference method,this paper empirically tests the effect of the reform on the tax revenue of prefecture-level cities.The empirical results show that after controlling the economic growth variables,the county-to-district reform has significantly reduced the tax revenue of cities.This effect is dynamic.the enterprise income tax revenue reduced the most.Moreover,for the cities with stronger reform intensity,the tax revenue dropped more.This may be due to the decline in the tax incentives of the reformed county government,which in turn reduced the level of tax efforts,resulting in a reduction in tax revenue.The results of this paper are helpful to understand the impact of government adjustments below provincial level on local government behavior and regional financial resources,and provide empirical evidence for further improving the division of tax revenue between the prefecture-level government and district-level government.