地方政府预算结构差异的制度解释:纵向统筹与横向趋同

The Institutional Explanation of the Differences in the Budget Structure of Local Governments:Vertical Planning and Horizontal Approaching

地方预算支出差异受到不同层级政府财政互动的影响,分析地方预算支出差异的成因对于理解政府预算行为至关重要。本文构造2010-2018年“城市对”数据,采用夏普利值分解法和倾向得分匹配法,识别影响我国地方政府四种民生性预算支出差异的两类因素:纵向统筹和横向趋同。纵向来看,我国省级以下地方政府的财政自主权有限,地级市预算必然受到省级政府的统筹引导。横向来看,因我国户籍制度改革和地方政府间的支出竞争,地级市预算受临近地区的影响。研究发现:第一,因省级政府统筹,省内城市间预算支出结构差异较小,跨省城市间预算支出结构差异较大。第二,因毗邻地区互动,毗邻城市间预算支出结构差异较小,不毗邻城市间预算支出结构差异较大。第三,在同时受两种力量影响时,不同支出类型所受纵向和横向影响的大小不同。对于教育和科学技术支出,横向趋同效果更为明显;对于医疗卫生和社会保障与就业支出,省级纵向统筹更为明显。

The difference of local budget expenditure is affected by the financial interactions between different levels of government.It is very important to analyze the special causes of the difference of local budget expenditure for understanding the government budget behavior.This paper constructs the paired city data from 2010 to 2018,and uses the methods of Sharpley value decomposition and propensity score matching to examine the vertical planning and horizontal approaching factors that affect the differences of four kinds of budget expenditures of local governments in China.Vertically,the local governments below the provincial level have limited financial autonomy,and the budgets of prefecture level cities are bound to be coordinated and guided by the provincial government.Horizontally,due to the deepening of the reform of the registered residence system and the expenditure competition among local governments,the budgets of prefecture level cities are also affected by the neighboring regions.The findings are as follows:Firstly,due to the overall planning of the provincial government,the budget expenditure difference between cities within the province is small,and the budget expenditure difference between cities across provinces is large.Secondly,due to the interaction of adjacent areas,the budget expenditure difference between adjacent cities is small,and the budget expenditure difference between non-adjacent cities is large.Thirdly,when affected by both vertical and horizontal factors,different expenditure types are affected by their relative intensities.For education and science and technology expenditure,the horizontal converging effect is more obvious;For medical and health expenditure and social security expenditure,the effect of provincial-level vertical planning is more obvious.