公共支出均衡化、外部性与最优一般性转移支付

Regional Public Expenditure Equalization,Externalities and Optimal General Transfer Payments

本文为研究政府间转移支付提供了一个可拓展的一般性理论框架。在公共支出存在外部性、地区对于公共品需求具有异质性偏好的设定下,本文证明中央对地方一般性转移支付是公共支出的函数,其边际量大小由四个因素决定,分别是支出对转移支付的弹性、公共支出在地区间的分布、中央对公共支出均等化的偏好,以及地区公共支出的外部性大小。结合该理论框架,本文进一步使用中国2019年的县级财政数据进行了数值分析,结果表明最优边际转移支付呈现U型且主要为负,其形状主要由公共支出均等化偏好和外部性决定。通过与现实政策对比,本文认为应进一步增强地区间基本公共服务均等化的政策倾斜力度。

Transfer payments play important roles in national financial systems with multi-level governments.General transfer payments,as the most important part of China's transfer payments,are crucial to the financial operation of local governments in China.The main functions of general transfer payments are to narrow regional financial gaps and guarantee basic local public service.In the past 30 years,China's general transfer payment system has been continuously modernized,but there are still many problems needing to be solved.China's transfer payment system has efficiency problems.First,there is a flypaper effect of transfer payments.Second,due to the information asymmetry between the central government and local governments,local governments have the incentive to disguise their expenditure levels,resulting in a mismatch between transfer payments and public expenditures.Third,transfer payment policies do not consider inter-regional externalities of public expenditures.Besides,transfer payments are still deficient in terms of the effect of inter-regional equalization,and there are still huge regional gaps in the levels of transfer payments and public expenditures.The current general transfer payment system is mainly based on formulas,which cannot fully solve the above-mentioned problems of transfer payments,and this system pays little attention to factors such as externalities.In order to optimize the general transfer payment policy,this paper discusses the above factors in a unified framework by constructing a theoretical model to study the optimization of the general transfer payment policy.In this model,there is heterogeneity in local governments'preferences for public expenditures,which cannot be observed by the central government and can only be captured by local governments.Local public expenditures have nationwide externalities.By designing a principal-agent mechanism,this paper demonstrates that the central government can define transfer payments based on levels of public spending when local revenues are not observable.This paper finds that the marginally optimal transfer payments depend on four factors,namely,the elasticity of local public spending,the inter-regional distribution of public spending,the redistributive impact of transfer payments,and the impact of public spending externalities.We manually collect data of Chinese county-level transfer payments and of local finance in 2016-2019 from local government budget disclosures.Using these data,this paper conducts a numerical simulation of the optimal transfer payments.The results show that the marginally optimal transfer payments present a U-shape pattern.Compared with the current transfer payment policy,the optimal transfer payments require more transfer payments to the regions with low expenditure levels and few transfer payments to the regions with high expenditure levels.Externalities push up the marginally optimal transfer payment level,and make the marginal transfer payment not zero in regions with the highest or lowest public expenditure levels.Among the influencing factors,inter-regional redistribution is the most important factor in determining the optimal transfer payments.Although the transfer payment system is one of the important fiscal policies,there is a lack of literature on transfer payment theory in recent years.Although previous literature has summarized functions of transfer payments and believed that transfer payments should focus on three dimensions,namely,efficiency,equity and externalities,there is no theoretical analysis in domestic and foreign literature on how these factors determine the design of transfer payments.Based on the research methodology of optimal taxation theory,this paper shows how different factors in the efficiency and equity dimensions theoretically determine the transfer payment policy by constructing a quantitative framework.Using the latest county-level fiscal data,this paper for the first time compares China's general transfer payments and theoretical transfer payments.The findings of this paper provide three policy implications for the current transfer payment system.First,we must further highlight general transfer payments'function of equalizing inter-regional basic public services.Second,general transfer payments should pay more attention to their efficiency and enhance the transparency of the disclosure of local public expenditures.Third,we need to consider the impact of externalities of transfer payment policies.