城市蔓延与城投债规模——一个空间政治经济学的视角

Urban Sprawl and the Scale of LGFV Bonds:A Perspective of Spatial Political Economy

本文基于空间政治经济学的视角探讨了城市蔓延与城投债规模之间的关系。研究发现,城市蔓延将带来低密度城市空间结构下基础设施的利用率降低和价值丧失,需要依靠地方政府财政收入补贴其投资运营成本,最终导致城投债发债规模和余额规模的扩张。同时,地方融资平台“借新还旧”的行为也将加剧城投债规模扩张。本文利用2006—2018年地级市数据为上述理论分析提供经验证据,结果显示城市蔓延与城投债规模显著正相关,并且该结论经多种稳健性检验后均成立。在畅通国内大循环及建设全国统一大市场的背景下,要素与产业会在空间上重新集聚布局,因而对于人口与产业迁出地而言上述问题将尤为突出。因此,本文的研究可以在对城投债扩张机制进行拓展的同时,为地方政府规避债务风险提供理论启示。

This article explores the relationship between urban sprawl and the scale of LGFV bonds.Research findings:urban sprawl will lead to decreased infrastructure utilization and loss of value in low-density urban spatial structures,necessitating reliance on local government fiscal revenue to subsidize their investment and operating costs,ultimately resulting in the expansion of the scale and balance of LGFV bonds.At the same time,the behavior of local government financing platforms—characterized as"borrowing new to repay old"—will also contribute to the expanded scale of LGFV bonds.This article provides empirical evidence for the aforementioned theoretical analysis using urban data from 2006 to 2018.The results show a significant positive correlation between urban sprawl and the scale of LGFV bonds,and this conclusion holds true in various robustness tests.In the context of promoting domestic circulation and establishing a unified national market,factors and industries will undergo spatial redistribution,highlighting the aforementioned issues for the areas experiencing population and industrial outflow.These findings expand the relevant research on the formation mechanism of LGFV bonds and provide theoretical insights for avoiding debt risks.