县级政府债务空间竞争机制与识别研究

Research on the Spatial Competition Mechanism and Identification of County Government Debt

本文从外溢机制、攀比机制和标尺竞争机制阐述了地方政府债务竞争的形成机理,基于2011~2014年县级地方政府性债务数据,采用多种空间计量模型,对中国地方政府间的债务竞争进行了定量识别。研究表明:中国县级政府在债务率、负债率且人均债务上均存在着显著的正向空间竞争关系,地方政府债务竞争并非完全由支出竞争和收入竞争所引致,主动的债务竞争也是重要因素,引入了反映时间滞后效应和时空滞后效应的相应变量后发现,债务攀比效应显著存在,地方政府债务行为在时间上具有连续性和路径依赖特征,地理相邻权重和地理距离权重下的时空滞后效应基本显著为负,即上一期地理相邻地区较高的债务规模反而会促使本地区当期债务规模的降低,这主要源于邻近地区债务风险对本地区所产生的'警惕效应',和相邻地区上一期过高的债务规模挤占了在原有限额范围内本地区应有的'债务规模空间',由此产生了'挤占效应'。本文研究不仅丰富拓展了财政竞争理论,为解释地方政府债务膨胀提供了空间视角,也为后续的债务风险管控提供了启示。

This paper expounds the formation mechanism of local government debt competition from the spillover mechanism,the comparison mechanism and the scale competition mechanism.Based on the county-level local government debt data from 2011 to 2014,a variety of spatial measurement models were used to quantitatively identify the debt competition among local governments in China.The research shows that there is a significant positive spatial competition between China’s county-level amplitudes in debt ratio,liability ratio and per capita debt.Local government debt competition is not entirely caused by expenditure competition and income competition,and active debt competition is also an important factor.After introducing the corresponding variables reflecting the time lag effect and the space-time lag effect,it is found that the debt comparison effect is significant,the local government debt behavior has the characteristics of continuity and path dependence in time;the effect of the spatial and temporal lag under geographical neighbor weight and geographic distance weight is basically negative.In other words,the higher debt scale in the geographical neighboring region in the previous period will lead to the reduction of the current debt size in the region,which is mainly due to the'vigilance effect'of the debt risk in the neighboring region,and the fact that the scale of the previous period’s excessive debt in the adjacent region has occupied the'debt scale space'that should be in the region within the original limit,resulting in a'squeezing effect'.The research in this paper not only enriches and expands the theory of fiscal competition,but also provides a spatial perspective for explaining the expansion of local government debt,and also provides inspiration for the subsequent control of debt risk.