财政分权中的灵活性、稳定性与经济增长--基于中国县级数据的实证研究

Discretion or Rules in the Process of Marketization and Economic Growth:From the Perspective of Fiscal Decentralization

一些研究认为,中国改革开放的经济成就源于以财政承包制为主要特征的灵活性分权体制,但随着市场化深入和社会经济问题日渐凸显,一些学者强调财政分权的稳定性才是经济增长的关键。如何理解上述争议?基于中国1999—2007年县级数据,对市场化进程中财政分权的灵活性和稳定性与经济增长的关系进行考察,结果表明:平均而言,财政分权的灵活性有利于县级经济增长。市场化抑制了财政分权的灵活性对经济增长的促进作用;当市场化程度超过临界值时,财政分权的灵活性转而抑制经济增长。这一结果背后的机理可能是政府有形之手和市场无形之手两种机制的替代作用。因此,财政分权的灵活性或稳定性选择取决于市场化程度。在市场化程度不断提高的形势下,在法治基础上约束政府间行为,明确地方政府收益预期,对中国经济下一步持续发展非常重要。

In the institutional explanation of the mystery of China's economic growth,the study of fiscal decentralization is an important and controversial issue.On the one hand,scholars have proposed that China's decentralization institution is a market-maintaining institution.However,with the deepening of China's marketization,the problems caused by decentralization have become increasingly prominent,so many scholars have emphasized that long-term rules are the keys to economic growth.This article proposes a dynamic interpretation framework based on the degree of marketization,and discusses that discretion and the regular fiscal decentralization institution are related to the degree of marketization.Based on cross-section county level dataset during 1999—2007,this paper studies the effect of the relationship between fiscal decentralization flexibility and regularity and marketization and economic growth effects.We find that,the flexibility of fiscal decentralization is beneficial to economic growth at the county level.Marketization inhibits the flexibility of fiscal decentralization and promotes economic growth.When the degree of marketization exceeds the critical value,the flexibility of fiscal decentralization turns to restrain economic growth.In other words,the process of marketization is more conducive to economic growth in regions where fiscal decentralization is more regular.The government's visible hand and the market's invisible hand are two alternative mechanisms for allocating resources.