地方债务扩张的政府策略——来自融资平台“城投债”发行的证据

Local Debt Expansion and the Strategy of Local Government

在提供“隐性担保”之外,中国地方政府是否会采取更加“主动”的措施来通过融资平台扩张债务?这些措施会对地方债务规模和成本造成哪些影响?本文基于微观数据,针对地方政府在“城投债”发行前后对融资平台的多种(显性)“财务支持”行为进行研究,发现在融资平台首次发行债券前,地方政府会显著增加对融资平台的注资(增资),以达到快速扩大其规模的目的;融资平台获得的土地资产规模显著增加,其中,可能包括地方政府的土地注入;地方政府会增加政府补贴数量,帮助融资平台达到债券发行的“门槛”要求;部分“财务支持”行为有助于“城投债”获得更高的外部信用评级,但对其发行利差没有显著影响。本文为分析地方债务问题提供了新的研究视角,对深入理解融资平台运作机制和地方政府债务问题具有意义。

Besides the well-known“Implicit Guarantee”mechanism,whether the local government engage in raising new debt with some more“active”manipulations?Based on micro data of LGFVs,this paper studies the“explicit”financial supports from the local government to her financial vehicle surrounding the issuance of Municipal Corporate Bond.Our study finds:before the first-time bond issuance,the local government significantly increase state equity transfer to the LGFVs,thus boosting the asset size of LGFV;The LGFVs obtain significant more land which may include land injection by local government;The local government will“manipulate”the amount of budget subsidies to help LGFV to meet the“threshold”of bond insurance;Certain types of these“financial supports”will update LGFV’s credit rating,but have no influence on interest spread.Our findings have an important meaning for deepen the understanding of operation mechanism of LGFVs and the dynamics of Chinese local government debt.