财政规则能抑制公共债务膨胀吗?研究进展与启示

Can Fiscal Rules Restrain the Expansion of Public Debt?Research Progress and Policy Implications

管控公共债务风险是当前世界各国普遍面临的重大难题。20世纪90年代以来,作为一项旨在促进财政可持续性的政策设计,财政规则被近百个国家采纳,在经历了第一代财政规则和第二代财政规则两个阶段后,财政规则越来越注重灵活性、简单性和可执行性的平衡与统一。财政规则通过减少自由裁量权和提高预期违规成本来增强财政纪律,通过降低债权风险溢价来提高政府信用评级和降低融资成本,并通过增强财政政策反周期性和缓解财政政策力度过大来抑制公共债务。但抑制作用的发挥受到其自身特征和利益相关方行为的影响,财政规则设计需特别注意财政政策与货币政策协同。对于中国而言,财政规则设计应更加注重法定性和预期性,在约束性的基础上体现灵活性和适应性,设计激励约束兼容的财政规则机制,是中国建立防范财政风险长效机制的基础性工作。同时,文章的研究对新冠肺炎疫情冲击下全球经济复苏与财政可持续性的关系协调具有一定启示意义。

Managing public debt risk is a major problem faced by all countries in the world. Since the 1990s, as a policy design aimed at promoting fiscal sustainability, fiscal rules have been adopted by nearly 100 countries. After two stages of first-generation fiscal rules and second-generation fiscal rules, fiscal rules pay more and more attention to the balance and unity of flexibility, simplicity and enforceability. Fiscal rules strengthen fiscal discipline by reducing discretionary power and increasing the expected cost of violation, raise the government’s credit rating and reduce financing cost by reducing debt risk premium, and restrain public debt by increasing anti-cyclical fiscal policy and mitigating excessive fiscal policy. But the exertion of restraining is affected by its own characteristics and the behavior of stakeholders, the design of fiscal rules should pay special attention to the coordination of fiscal policy and monetary policy. For China, the design of fiscal rules should pay more attention to the legality and expectation, and the flexibility and adaptability should be reflected on the basis of restraint. The design of a compatible incentive and restraint mechanism is the basic work of China to establish a long-term mechanism to prevent fiscal risks. Meanwhile, the research in this paper is of enlightening significance for the relationship between global economic recovery and fiscal sustainability under the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.