财政分权、政府竞争和劳动收入份额--来自“省直管县”改革的证据

Fiscal Decentralization,Government Competition,and Labor Income Share:Evidence from the“Province Managing Counties”Reform

在进一步推进省以下财政体制改革和聚焦共同富裕的发展背景下,如何通过更好的财政机制有效实现居民收入增长和劳动报酬提高已经成为一个重要议题。本文利用中国工业企业数据和县域数据,运用双重差分方法,以“省直管县”改革为准实验,研究财政分权对企业劳动收入份额的影响。研究发现,“省直管县”财政体制改革显著降低了县域内企业劳动收入份额,其引致的税收竞争和财政支出竞争扭曲了地方政府税收征管和财政支出行为,进而导致企业避税增加和融资约束加剧,对劳动收入份额产生负面影响。

In the context of further advancing fiscal system reform below the provincial level and promoting common prosperity,improving resident income and labor compensation through better fiscal mechanisms has become an important topic This paper examines the impact of the“province managing counties”(PMC)reform,a form of fiscal decentralization,using data from Chinas industrial enterprises and countylevel statistics By employing a staggered differenceindifferences(DID)model,this paper investigates how this reform affects the share of labor income within enterprises The empirical results show that the PMC fiscal system reform significantly reduces the share of labor income within local enterprises Further analysis reveals that the PMC reform increase local government decentralization,leading to distorted tax enforcement and fiscal expenditure competition among local governments This,in turn,increases tax avoidance by enterprises and worsen financing constraints,resulting in a negative impact on the share of labor income within enterprises.