增长目标管理下的地方政府土地竞争

Yardstick Competition in Land Supply:The Logic of Local Governments Promoting Economic Growth

经济增长目标的设定对地方政府政策工具的选择具有重要的影响。本文利用2007一2019年地级市面板数据分析了经济增长目标对土地供给和土地竞争的影响。本文的创新点在于从增长目标管理的角度考察地方政府的土地竞争行为及其溢出效应,并从理论和实证上区分土地供给的“资源流动效应”和“标尺竞争”效应。研究发现,地方政府经济增长目标提高会刺激土地供给面积增加,而且省内增长排名越靠后的地级市土地供给面积越大。另外,我们发现,增长目标提高会鼓励地方政府以较低的价格出让工业用地并提高其供给比例、以较高的价格出让商业和住房用地并降低其供给比例;地级市之间的土地供给空间相关性主要发生在同省份城市之间,尤其是同省份经济距离更近的城市之间,这体现为“标尺竞争”,并且增长目标的“层层加码”只对省内地级市的土地供给产生溢出效应。

For a long time,growth targets management has been an important means for China to play the role of an“active government”and promote economic development.However,under the tax-sharing system,local governments'financial power has been significantly constrained,making it increasingly difficult to attract corporate investment and stimulate economic growth through fiscal expenditures and tax preference policy.The land reform that began at the end of the 1990s allowed state-owned land to be leased through agreements,bidding,auctions,and listings,opening the door for local governments to promote“development through land.”Under the pressure of economic growth targets,local governments have strong incentives to use land leasing as a means of promoting local competition.First,they lower the price of industrial land leasing and increase the area of land transferred to attract entrepreneurs'investment and stimulate economic growth,reflecting the“land-based investment”function of land leasing.Second,they raise the price of commercial and residential land leasing to obtain more land conveyance fees for financing local infrastructure investment,leveraging the“land finance”function.Based on the above theoretical inferences,this paper uses panel data of prefecture-level cities from 2007 to 2019 to analyze the impact of economic growth targets on land supply and land competition.Regression results show that raising local governments'economic growth targets will stimulate them to increase land supply,and the larger economic growth pressure faced by the local government,the larger the land supply area;higher economic growth targets encourage local governments under greater growth pressure to increase industrial land supply at lower prices and reduce commercial and residential land supply athigherprices.This paper finds that the promotion tournament regime and local governments'obsession with growth make land competition closer to“yardstick competition.”“Yardstick competition”in land supply primarily occurs among cities in the same province,especially among cities that are economically closer.The study also finds that the“top-down amplification”of economic growth targets have spillover effects on land supply only in same-province prefecture-level cities,without inter-provincial spillover effects.The main contribution of this paper is as follows.It examines local governments'land competition behavior and its spillover effects from the perspective of growth target management;it theoretically and empirically distinguishes whether land supply is derived from the“resource-flow effect”or“yardstick competition”;and it further analyzes the spillover effects of the“top-down amplification”of growth targets.