政府债务根源与财政规则有效性——来自跨国样本的证据

The Root of Government Debt and the Effectiveness of Financial Rules:The Evidence from the Cross-Border Samples

全球金融危机之后,政府债务问题成为国际经济领域持续关注的焦点。在此背景下,利用典型发达国家长达一百三十余年的数据实证分析政治竞争、财政规则与政府债务的关系。结论显示:在长期中,发达国家政府债务的膨胀源于国内政治竞争而非外部冲击,政治家和不同利益集团的政治博弈导致了财政公共池塘问题的出现和政府内生性的债务倾向。针对上述债务根源,并非所有类型的财政规则均能化解,支出规则和债务规则有助于校正政治家扭曲的激励、重塑财政纪律和债务的可持续性,财政征收规则和平衡预算规则效果并不显著。此外,拥有法律地位和外部独立的监管机构以及杜绝例外条款能够显著提高支出规则的有效性,债务规则并未显示出上述特征。对于我国而言,积极探索地方层面的财政规则可成为长期中化解地方债务问题的努力方向。

After the global financial crisis,the government debt has become the focal point in the field of international economy.Under this background,this paper,adopting the data of more than one hundred and thirty years from the typical developed countries,carries an empirical analysis of the relationship between political competition,fiscal rules and government debt.As shown in the results,in the long run,the expansion of government debt in developed countries is due to domestic political competition,rather than external shocks;the game between the politicians and the different interest groups leads to the common pool problem and the endogeneity tendency of the government debt.As for these causes for the debt,not all the fiscal rules can resolve them.The debt rule and expenditure rule help to correct the distorted incentives from the politicians,and rebuild the fiscal disciplines and the sustainability of debt.In contrast,the revenue rule and the budget balance rule show no significant effect on the level of government debt.In addition,the supervision organization that wins the legislative support and is externally independent,along with no escape clauses,can significantly improve the effectiveness of the expenditure rules.However,the debt rules do not show these characteristics.It is suggested to actively explore the fiscal rules at a local level so as to resolve the local debt problems in China in the future.