财政分权对全要素生产率的影响--基于“省直管县”改革的准自然实验

The Influence of Fiscal Decentralization on the Total Factor Productivity:Empirical Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment of Province-Managing-County Reform

"省直管县"改革一改以往"省-市-县"的管理模式,有助于提高县级政府的财政分权水平。为缓解内生性,将"省直管县"改革视为一项准自然实验,构建双重差分模型检验了财政分权对全要素生产率的因果效应。研究发现:①财政分权对全要素生产率的正向促进作用高于负面阻碍作用,但不同形式的分权影响有异质性,具体来说财权的下放有利于全要素生产率的提高,经济社会事务管理权限的下放则不利于。②当地方政府自主权提高时,其"重生产、轻服务"的支出偏好,使得当地基础设施供给增加,而能够增强地方软实力、加快创新要素集聚的公共服务供给相应减少,造成了全要素生产率的损失,导致在经济高质量高效益增长中政府"有形之手"的作用发挥不够。③随着改革的推进,财政分权对全要素生产率的正向作用逐渐减弱,并不再显著。据此,从合理划分省以下政府的事权与支出责任,充实基层政府财力;提高公共服务类指标在政府官员政绩考核中的权重,加强各县(市)政府间的合作,实现各自为政的地方经济向统一市场整合等方面提出政策建议。

Province-Managing-County reform changed the management model of"province-city-county"in the past,effectively improving the level of fiscal decentralization of county-level governments.This paper takes the provincemanaging-county reform as a quasi-natural experiment for mitigating endogenous,the difference-in-difference method to evaluate the causal effect of fiscal decentralization on total factor productivity.The empirical study results show that firstly,the fiscal decentralization has more positive effect on total factor productivity than negative effect,but different forms of decentralization have heterogeneity.In particular,the decentralization of fiscal resources is beneficial to the total factor productivity,and the decentralization of economic administrative authority is not conducive to.Secondly,when the autonomy of the local government is enhanced,the government’s preference of"emphasizing production and neglecting services"will increase the supply of infrastructure;reduce the supply of public service which can accelerate innovative elements gathering,resulting in a loss of total element productivity.Thirdly,the causal effect of fiscal decentralization on the total factor productivity tends to decline over time,and becomes no longer significant.At last,make out corresponding policy implications:reasonably divide the authority and expenditure responsibility of the government below the provincial level,raise the weight of public service indicators in the performance evaluation,and strengthen cooperation among counties.