增值税分成、财政激励与城市经济发展不平衡——内在机制与经验证据

VAT Sharing,Fiscal Incentives,and Urban Economic Development Imbalance:Internal Mechanism and Empirical Evidence

优化财政分配格局对推进区域协调发展与实现共同富裕具有重要意义。为了探究地方政府财政激励差异如何影响城市经济发展不平衡变化,本文以2016年增值税分成比例调整作为地方财政激励的准自然实验,基于2010~2019年市县经济统计数据,运用强度双重差分模型考察了财政激励对城市经济发展不平衡的影响。研究发现,财政激励能显著降低城市经济发展不平衡,且这一效应具有持续性特征。对于改革前经济发展不平衡较高和经济发展水平较低的城市,财政激励发挥着“雪中送炭”的作用。而在税收征管强度较高的城市,财政激励效应更加明显。机制证据表明,财政激励通过加强税收竞争和扩大政府投资两种渠道降低城市经济发展不平衡程度。进一步分析发现,财政激励推进了城市共同富裕发展进程,是城市经济发展不平衡改善的主要表现。本文不仅拓展了税收分成的经济效应研究,而且从财政激励角度廓清了城市经济协调发展的制度成因和内在机制。本文结论为新发展阶段推进省以下财政体制改革、构建区域协调发展新格局提供了经验参考和决策方向。

Since the “reform and opening-up” policy started in 1978,the issue of imbalanced regional economic development in China has always existed.This issue has been alleviated with the gradual implementation of the coordinated regional development strategy after the 1990s.Therefore,it needs to be solved urgently.In the new development stage,how to build a scientific and reasonable economic system to promote coordinated regional development and achieve a higher level of common prosperity has become a major strategic topic for the comprehensive construction of Chinese modernization.The fiscal system is an important institutional arrangement for dividing the financial power among governments,strengthening macro control,and coordinating regional development.However,previous studies have not reached a consensus on whether fiscal incentives play a promoting or inhibiting role in the imbalanced regional economic development in China.To deeply explore how the difference in local government fiscal incentives affects the urban economic development imbalance in the context of fiscal system reform,this study takes the adjustment of the value-added tax(VAT) sharing ratio in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment of local fiscal incentives.Based on the data at the county and prefecture-level city levels in China from 2010 to 2019,it applies an intensity differences-in-differences(DID) model to examine the impact of fiscal incentives on urban economic development imbalance.The basic regression results reveal that fiscal incentives significantly reduce urban economic development imbalance,and this effect is persistent.The heterogeneity analysis indicates that fiscal incentives play a timely role in cities with a high degree of economic development imbalance and a low level of economic development,and the effect of fiscal incentives is more obvious in cities with higher tax administration intensity.In addition,the mechanism evidence suggests that the VAT sharing reform increases the tax sharing ratio of local governments,stimulates the local governments to enhance tax competition,accelerates capital flow and diffusion,and increases infrastructure-focused government investment,thus promoting balanced urban economic development.Furthermore,the empirical results reveal that fiscal incentives advance the process of urban common prosperity development,instead of leading to common poverty,which is the main manifestation of the improvement effect of unbalanced urban economic development.This study reveals that fiscal incentives regarding VAT sharing reform significantly inhibit regional economic development imbalance.Tax competition and government investment are important means to promote coordinated regional development.This study makes the following contributions to the literature.First,based on the practice of fiscal and tax system reform,this study explores the institutional causes of coordinated regional economic development from the perspective of local government fiscal incentives,thus expanding research on unbalanced economic development.Second,it enriches research on the economic effects of income tax sharing and VAT sharing.Most prior studies are based on the income tax sharing reform and focus on the impacts of the “pressure-type” fiscal incentive on the revenue and expenditure behavior of local governments as well as the economic behavior and performance of enterprises.In this study,we pay attention to the VAT sharing reform and assess the effect of positive fiscal incentives on a balanced urban economic development.Therefore,this study not only clarifies the theoretical logic between fiscal incentives and balanced regional economic development but also extends the empirical research direction in the field of tax sharing.Third,by examining the coordinated development effect of fiscal incentives and its internal mechanism,this study provides empirical evidence and decision-making reference for improving the fiscal system reform,balancing the allocation of financial and administrative powers between the central and local governments,building a new coordinated regional development paradigm,and achieving common prosperity in the new development stage.