财政转移支付、教育投入与长期受教育水平

Fiscal Transfer,Education Investment and Long-Term Educational Performance

教育事权和支出责任在政府间的合理配置对教育发展至关重要,原因在于地方政府没有激励将本地自有财政收入投入教育领域,这些具有空间外溢性的公共服务成为中央财政的政策目标,中央的财政转移支付填补了地方财政对教育投入的不足。本文将2010年人口普查数据和宏观财政数据进行匹配,即以出生年份和地区为基础,构造在其所属的义务教育阶段受益的财政转移支付占地方总财力的比重,以评估转移支付对教育发展的作用。研究发现,财政转移支付的比重每提升10个百分点,本地区居民的受教育年限能够增加约0.2年,在三大类转移支付中,专项转移支付的作用更为明显。在机制检验中,我们也发现财政转移支付能够有效增加地方的教育支出,产生了明显的结构效应。为进一步提升居民的长期受教育水平,本文认为要以教育领域的事权和支出责任划分为前提,完善财政转移支付制度对共同事权的激励作用。

The rational allocation of educational powers and expenditure responsibilities among governments of different levels is crucial to the development of education.The reason is that local governments have no incentive to invest their own fiscal revenue in education.Education and other public services with spatial spillover are the target recipients of the central government revenue.The fiscal transfer payment has made up for the shortage of local investment in education.This paper merges the 2010 census data with the macro fiscal data,constructs the proportion of the transfer payment benefiting from its compulsory education stage in the total local fiscal resources,based on the year and region of birth,so as to evaluate the role of the transfer payment in the development of education.We find that for every 10 percentage points increased in the proportion of transfer payment,the education years of local residents will increase by 0.2 year.Among the three types of transfer payment,the role of special transfer payment is more significant.In the mechanism test,we find that transfer payment can effectively increase local education expenditure and produce an obvious structural effect.In order to further improve the long-term educational performance of residents,we believe that it is necessary to improve the incentive effect of the transfer payment system on common powers and the division of expenditure responsibilities in the field of education.