财政纵向失衡能推动经济高质量发展吗

Will Financial Vertical Imbalance Drive High Quality Economic Development?

深化财政体制改革是国家治理现代化的必然要求,更是推动中国经济高质量发展的制度保障。就中国财政体制改革的典型特征而言,合理控制财政纵向失衡水平是推动经济高质量发展的强劲动力。为此,以财政纵向失衡为切入点,利用2004—2020年中国31个省份的面板数据,实证检验财政纵向失衡对经济高质量发展的影响及其合理区间。研究表明,中国的财政分权随财政纵向失衡水平的变化对经济高质量发展表现为显著的门槛效应。从全国层面看,促进经济高质量发展的最优财政纵向失衡区间为[0,0.8517],且不同地区有所差异,当财政纵向失衡程度超过一定的门槛值时,财政分权对经济高质量发展的负向效应显著提高。因此,需理顺政府间财政关系,优化事权与支出责任划分;合理控制财政纵向失衡水平,不断缓解地方财政压力;完善地方政府的激励与约束机制,全面调动经济高质量发展的积极性。

Deepening the reform of the fiscal system is not only an inevitable requirement for the modernization of national governance,but also an institutional guarantee for promoting high-quality economic development in China.In terms of the typical characteristics of China’s fiscal system reform,the rational control of vertical financial imbalance is a strong driving force to promote high-quality economic development.Therefore,this paper takes the vertical fiscal imbalance as the entry point,and uses the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2004 to 2020 to empirically test the impact of vertical fiscal imbalance on high-quality economic development and its reasonable range.The findings show that fiscal decentralization in China has a significant threshold effect on high-quality economic development with the changes of the level of fiscal vertical imbalance.From the national level,the optimal fiscal vertical imbalance to promote high-quality economic development is in the range of[0,0.8517],and there are differences in different regions.When the degree of fiscal vertical imbalance exceeds a certain threshold value,the negative effect of fiscal decentralization on high-quality economic development is significantly increased.Therefore,it is necessary to straighten out the financial relationship between governments and optimize the division of authority and expenditure responsibility,rationally control the level of financial vertical imbalance and continuously relieve the pressure on local finance,and improve the incentive and restraint mechanisms of the local governments to fully stimulate the enthusiasm for high-quality economic development.