China’s Proactive Fiscal Policy

In contrast to the traditional Western approach to macro-fiscal management,China’s proactive fiscal policy is founded on a people-centered development philosophy and,with distinctive Chinese characteristics,is a significant policy innovation of macroeconomic management in the Chinese modernization.Although there are notable distinctions between the Western“Keynesian”and the“nonKeynesian”schools of thought,both of these approaches’core policy goals and methodological roots are the same,composing the traditional Western macro-fiscal approach.This approach faces increasing real dilemmas.China’s proactive fiscal policy,however,places greater emphasis on future potential growth rates in addition to equilibrium between supply and demand,achieving a fiscal policy transformation with a new approach.In this paper we argue that with such a new approach,China should reconsider the nature and reasonable level of the fiscal deficit,the function and risk assessment criteria of government debt,the scope and effects of reductions in taxes and fees,its approach and focus of demand management,and the costs and resulting efficiencies of policies in order to develop a new fiscal policy paradigm that is more in line with its stated goals.

Revisiting the nexus between fiscal decentralization and CO_(2)emissions in South Africa:fresh policy insights

The argument over fiscal decentralization and carbon dioxide emission(CO_(2))reduction has received much attention.However,evidence to back this claim is limited.Economic theory predicts that fiscal decentralization affects environmental quality,but the specifics of this relationship are still up for debate.Some scholars noted that fiscal decentralization might lead to a race to the top,whereas others contended that it would result in a race to the bottom.In light of the current debates in environmental and development economics,this study aims to provide insight into how this relationship may function in South Africa from 1960 to 2020.In contrast to the existing research,the present study uses a novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lag simulation approach to assess the positive and negative changes in fiscal decentralization,scale effect,technique effect,technological innovation,foreign direct investment,energy consumption,industrial growth,and trade openness on CO_(2)emissions.The following are the main findings:(i)Fiscal decentralization had a CO_(2)emission reduction impact in the short and long run,highlighting the presence of the race to the top approach.(ii)Economic growth(as represented by the scale effect)eroded ecological integrity.However,its square(as expressed by technique effect)aided in strengthening ecological protection,validating the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis.(iii)CO_(2)emissions were driven by energy utilization,trade openness,industrial value-added,and foreign direct investment,whereas technological innovation boosted ecological integrity.Findings suggest that further fiscal decentralization should be undertaken through further devolution of power to local entities,particularly regarding environmental policy issues,to maintain South Africa’s ecological sustainability.South Africa should also establish policies to improve environmental sustainability by strengthening a lower layer of government and clarifying responsibilities at the national and local levels to fulfill the energy-saving functions of fiscal expenditures.

Promoting or inhibiting? Green fiscal policy and urban green innovation

Can green fiscal policy(GFP)incentivize the proliferation of urban green innovation(GI)and be a novel cata‐lyst for energy conservation and emission reduction within the“dual-carbon”framework?This paper explores GFP ramifications for GI by implementing a difference-in-differences model in a natural experiment centered on the“Comprehensive Demonstration City of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policies”.The em‐pirical analysis reveals several key findings:(1)GFP exhibits significant augmentation at the GI level,with an observable evolutionary trend of increasing marginal impact.Importantly,these outcomes withstand rigorous robustness tests,including propensity score matching.(2)A mechanism analysis elucidates the dual impact of GFP on GI growth.GFP directly fosters GI advancement indirectly by promoting talent aggregation,expanding scientific and technological investment,and attracting external financial resources.(3)A heterogeneity analy‐sis demonstrates that GFP enhancement of GI is closely associated with the patent category,manifesting a dis‐tinct pattern of“eastern region>other regions”and“non-resource cities>resource cities”.The study’s em‐pirical findings offer crucial real-world insights to guide the Chinese government in formulating a more effi‐cient GFP and facilitating the expansion of innovative endeavors while contributing to environmentally sus‐tainable and high-value development.

Natural Resource Governance in Unrecognized Settings: What Are Emerging Political, Legal and Fiscal Issues Affecting “Somaliland”?

Somaliland declared independence after the fall of the Central Government of Somalia in 1991. Early peace settlements and state-building efforts led to transitional government and early democratic contestations including presidential elections in a hybrid state framework. This emerging democracy in a conflict-torn region is challenged by weak accountability and power imbalances between the three government branches. Over the past few years, the current ruling party started to engage with foreign companies to carry out exploration activities in onshore blocks utilizing existing information on the distribution of natural resources of oil, and gas and to lesser extent mining. Following an informal auction of selling licenses for resource exploration among various companies, Genel Energy amongst others;Somaliland has no competent institutions in managing revenues for long-term development due to two distinctive factors: 1) absence of strong legal and political frameworks specific to governance of extractive industry;2) weak fiscal regimes across spectrum of extractive companies, the state and investors.

Fiscal Policy and Inflation in Nigeria

This paper empirically examined the impact of fiscal policy on inflation in Nigeria.Time series data on inflation,government revenue,government expenditure,and gross domestic product were sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN).The aforementioned secondary data cover the period from 1981 to 2021.The Augmented Dickey Fuller(ADF)unit root test and Johansen co-integration test were used to testing for data stationarity and the existence or otherwise of co-integrating equations respectively.Thereafter,data were analyzed using Ordinary Least Square and Parsimonious Error Correction techniques.Findings from the study show that government expenditure and revenue both have a positive relationship with the rate of inflation,though the latter is not statistically significant.Also,there is a positive but insignificant relationship between inflation and gross domestic product.In line with the above findings,we,therefore,recommend that the Nigerian government at all levels(local,state,and federal)should be tactful in the use of fiscal policy tools to avoid triggering inflationary pressure and its negative multiplier effects on the welfare of its citizenry.

China’s Institutional Strength,Monetary Policy Coordination and Fiscal Crowding-in Effect

As two main tools of macroeconomic policies,coordination and conflict between fiscal and monetary policies have been paid considerable attention by researchers.Under a structural vector autoregressive model that incorporates fiscal and monetary policies,this paper analyzes the monetary policy response to fiscal shocks.Our study finds that during the occurrence of a fiscal shock,the growth rate of broad money supply M2 substantially increased,indicating the adoption of an expansionary monetary policy by the monetary authority to fiscal policy expansion.Based on this empirical finding,this paper improves the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to investigate the fiscal policy effects under China’s monetary policy coordination.Our analysis shows that monetary policy coordination will significantly boost the economic stimulus effect of fiscal policy,generating a fiscal crowding-in effect.From the perspective of China’s institutional strength,this conclusion offers a theoretical explanation on the empirical fact of the fiscal crowdingin effect uncovered in the research literature,and offers a policy reference for making the proactive fiscal policy more efficient and effective.This paper suggests that China’s policymakers give full play to the country’s institutional strength by coordinating fiscal and monetary policies for high-quality economic development.

China's Local-Central Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations

For a large country like China, the handling of intergovernmental fiscal relations must create compatible incentives to central and local governments. China initially created a fiscal management system characterized by tax sharing in 1994, basically meeting the needs of its socialist market economic system. Yet further improvements must be made to the assignment of administrative authority and expenditure responsibilities, revenue allocation and the fiscal transfer payment system. In handling intergovernmental fiscal relations, great attention must be given to the system＇s stability to give play to its function of incentives and restraints. China must create a hierarchical fiscal management system in line with its modern fiscal system. According to the requirements of this system, China should further standardize the division between administrative authority and expenditure responsibilities, standardize the division of government revenues, formalize a fiscal transfer payment system, and develop a hierarchical fiscal management system encompassing the sharing of tax, rents and profits.

Comparative Analysis of Fiscal Sustainability of China and the US

The fiscal sustainability of China and the United States is of major concern globally. Based on comparative data analysis, this paper reveals that the government debt level of both countries is within the normal range. Robust growth prospects of both countries will also vigorously support their future mitigation of government debt level. Comparatively speaking, China＇s government debt level is healthy and, despite extensive concerns, even its local government debt is not very high. The assessment that China may encounter a crisis is not supported by evidence. Yet in the long run, both countries will face pressures from increased fiscal spending on elder care and healthcare stemming from an ageing population, which will threaten their fiscal sustainability. These challenges require both countries to speed up reforms of elder care and healthcare. Specifically, China needs to focus on elder care reforms and the US should attach more importance to healthcare reforms.

Seven Decades of China's Fiscal Modernization

After its founding in 1949,the People’s Republic of China'started to modernize its fiscal system-an essential part of its broader modernization drive.Its unified and wellfunctioning fiscal system supported the stability of the nascent government,and helped stabilize the economy and restore public order after then.In the era of the planned economy,public finance in the country was put at the service of economic plans while striving to reach a fiscal equilibrium,which was of great significance at that time.Economic equilibrium,including fiscal,credit and material equilibrium,was perceived as a manifestation of macroeconomic stability.Problems encountered during the era of the planned economy led to the launch of a reform and opening-up program-a brilliant chapter in modern Chinese history.The Third Plenum of the 11th CPC Central Committee marks a brand-new era of reform and opening-up.In this transformative period,China’s fiscal system was initially decentralized to keep abreast of its“planned commodity economy.”After the goal of socialist market economic reform was announced in 1992,China’s fiscal reforms embarked on a fast track.As China'strived to build a public finance system compatible with a socialist market economic system,fiscal reforms took place and fiscal policy played a more important role in macroeconomic regulation.The Third Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee held in November 2013 set the goal of the reform to establish a modern fiscal system.Afterwards,China deepened its fiscal reforms,focusing on budget management,taxation and reform of central-local fiscal relations.

An Assessment of China's New Round of Reform of the Fiscal and Taxation Systems

Based on the Decisions of the CPC Central Committee on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and the Overall Plan on Deepening Fiscal and Tax Reforms, this paper presents a systematic assessment of the progress of China's new round of fiscal and tax reforms from November 2013 to October 2016 with the following findings. Reform of the budgetary management system has yielded initial results yet remains in the preliminary stage. While progress has been made in reforming indirect taxes, the reform of direct taxes is slow and presents a major obstacle. Despite breakthroughs, the progress of public finance reforms remains slow and impedes reforms on other fronts. Fiscal and tax reforms are uneven and should be implemented in coordination. Fiscal and tax reforms should more vigorously support overall reforms.

Reforms on China＇s Fiscal System and Its Impact on Local Government Behavior

The fiscal system is an important part of national economic management and deals with the division of financial responsibility and power, regulates and defines the fiscal activities among different levels of governments. The changes in economic system and economic structure decide the changes of fiscal function and fiscal structure, which results in the changes in intergovernmental distribution form and local government behavior. This paper takes a look at the stages of China＇s fiscal reform process and the impacts on local government behavior, and tries to find measures for perfecting the fiscal system reform to optimize local government behavior and guarantee a healthy national economy.

Fiscal Council and Pre-election Platforms Evaluation： A Scenario for Greece

The crisis of the Greek economy underlined the structural deficiency of the domestic growth model that was depicted to the wide ＂twin-deficit＂ problem of a statist market economy. The core of the domestic growth model is the role of the public sector which, inter alia, was characterized by high and permanent fiscal deficits, low efficiency, and steady divergence from an advanced welfare state. During the 2010-2015 adjustment effort, fiscal adjustment was the critical dimension of the effort in order to stabilize public finances at a sustainable level and significantly reduce the financial needs. The sustainability, however, of public finance stabilization is determined by the structural reforms in the fiscal policy framework and the public financial management framework. One of the structural fiscal reforms was the new law for the establishment of the Hellenic Fiscal Council in 2014 following the European institutional framework. The paper discusses the strong harmonization of electoral cycle and fiscal deterioration and analyses the scenario of enhancing the Fiscal Council＇s responsibilities in Greece with the evaluation of the pre-election platforms. In particular, the paper, taking into account the characteristics of the Greek political economy, focuses on the critical prerequisites so as this scenario to become a real structural reform. These institutional and political prerequisites are institutional independence, political independence, functional independence, broad political acceptance, ＂adjustment period＂, and clarity of rules and evaluation procedures. So, even though the evaluation ofpre-election economic programs seems ultra-difficult for the case of Greece, it should not be set aside as unachievable in the long run.

The Distributional Impacts of Fiscal Consolidation in Uganda

While Uganda is considered to be at low risk of debt distress,the stagnant tax effort and large planned capital expenditures might significantly alter this position.This paper employs the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium(DSGE)model to examine tax design issues that arise in addressing debt increases.The results suggest that Uganda may improve it debt position by permanently increasing tax rates by 5%point.However,an increase of consumption tax rates(Value Added Tax(VAT)and Excise)by this magnitude to meet debt reduction is found to be relatively more distortionary affecting consumption,especially for the poor households,in both the short and long run leading to large temporary reductions in the Gross Domestic Product(GDP).

A Study of the Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on the Efficiency of Public Health Expenditure

In this present-day global pandemic that has not been completely resolved,health is a major concern among people,and correspondingly,people are demanding higher standards for public health products and services provided by the government.In this paper,we measure the technical efficiency of public health expenditure in each province by using the data envelopment analysis(DEA)model,and examine the impact of decentralization on the efficiency of public health expenditure under the fiscal decentralization system using the panel data from 31 provinces from 2012-2019 in a panel model subject to fixed effects.

CHINA'S REGIONAL DISPARITY IN 1981-2000:OPENNESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF NON-STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES AND FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION

While China's economic growth has been impressive since 1978, regional disparity in terms of provincial per capita GDP has been increasing. On the other hand, this rapid but uneven growth was accompanied by China's deepening openness and structural reforms including the development of non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and fiscal decentralization. Based on quantitative analyses, this paper tries to explore the features of regional disparity in China and the relationships between regional growth and China's openness and economic structure reforms in the period from 1981 to 2000. The paper finds that the catching-up of the coastal region to the initially rich provinces, which are mainly located in inland areas, brought about a convergence of the growth pattern across provinces in the 1980s.The subsequent divergence in the provincial growth rates between the coast and the interior generated an enlarging regional disparity in China in the 1990s. The ever-faster growth in the coastal region was benefited by China's openness and the development of non-state-owned enterprises. The development of non-state-owned enterprises underlies the higher operational efficiency in the coastal region. Additionally, with the insignificant regression results, fiscal decentralization was observed to facilitate faster growth in the coast region. The findings justify the initiative of the 'West Region Development Strategy' and offer some policy implications for China.

Fiscal Expenditure and Income Gap between Urban and Rural Residents: An Empirical Study Based on Malmquist Index and Spatial Econometrics

Based on the analysis methods of non-parametric Malmquist index and spatial econometrics as well as the provincial panel data in 2007-2010, this paper estimates the efficiency of fiscal expenditure from local governments in china in terms of reducing the income gap between urban and rural residents for the first time and evaluates the spatial correlation and heterogeneity of this efficiency. The results have shown that the fiscal expenditure of most provinces is of low efficiency in reducing the income gap between urban and rural residents, and the expenditure efficiency of local governments is not relevant to their levels of economic development. Besides, the efficiency on reducing the urban-rural income gap between different regions of China has a tendency of convergence. But this is mainly reflected inside the regional economic belt. There is significant difference between the efficiency of each economic belt. The central region has the highest efficiency in a rising trend, the western region has the lowest efficiency in a downward trend, while the eastern region is relatively stable.

The Changes of Fiscal Agriculture-Supporting Expenditure and Farmers' Income Based on Grey Correlation Theory

According to the relevant data of China Statistical Yearbook and Chinese Rural Statistical Yearbook in the year of 2009,the changes of grey correlation degree of farmers' net income,various items of incomes,national gross agriculture-supporting expenditure and various items of expenditures,farmers' net income and various items of fiscal agriculture-supporting expenditure in the Eighth Five-Year Plan,Ninth Five-Year Plan and Tenth Five-Year Plan by using grey correlation degree and the by choosing seven indicators covering income from wage and salary,income from household business,transfer income and property income,agricultural production-supporting expenditure,agricultural basic construction expenditure,expenses of three items of agricultural technology and the fee of rural relief.The results show that the grey correlation degree of each time period and household net income shows the downward trend;from overall perspective,the grey correlation degree of national gross agriculture-supporting expenditure,agricultural basic construction expenditure and agricultural production-supporting expenditure shows the descending trend;the grey correlation degree of fiscal agricultural supporting expenditure and the expenditure of three items of agricultural technology and fee of rural relief show the upward trend;the influence of agricultural production-supporting expenditure on farmers' income shows downward trend;the influence of agricultural basic construction on farmers' income shows upward trend;the fee of rural relief play an active role in the promoting the farmers' income increase;the role played by fee of rural relief in promoting farmers' income increase should be further increased;the increase of farmers' income shows great reliance on agricultural science and technology.In the end,the relevant suggestions on establishing stable increase mechanism of fiscal agricultural support and insisting on the dynamic adjustment of the structure of fiscal agricultural supporting capital are put forward.

RECURSIVE UTILITY,PRODUCTIVE GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE AND OPTIMAL FISCAL POLICY

This paper employs a stochastic endogenous growth model extended to the case of a recursive utility function which can disentangle intertemporal substitution from risk aversion to analyze productive government expenditure and optimal fiscal policy, particularly stresses the importance of factor income. First, the explicit solutions of the central planner＇s stochastic optimization problem are derived, the growth maximizing and welfare-maximizing government expenditure policies are obtained and their standing in conflict or coincidence depends upon intertemporal substitution. Second, the explicit solutions of the representative individual＇s stochastic optimization problem which permits to tax on capital income and labor income separately are derived ,and it is found that the effect of risk on growth crucially depends on the degree of risk aversion,the intertemporal elasticity of substitution and the capital income share. Finally, a flexible optimal tax policy which can be internally adjusted to a certain extent is derived, and it is found that the distribution of factor income plays an important role in designing the optimal tax policy.

Fiscal Policy Effect Analysis Based on Agents Response Equilibrium (ARE) Model

Agents response equilibrium (ARE) model has been taken advantage of to build a multi-agent system for analyzing fiscal policy effect. Through establishing various types of economic entities and endowing them with abilities to react and make decision, the whole system will evolve to new conditions in response to policy change. Compared with different scenarios, it can be concluded that when raising taxation ratio, sectoral scale will shrink to some extent. But supported by government expenditure, certain sectors could be kept in comparatively larger production scale.

Path Choice and Fiscal Policies of Three Gorges Reservoir in Post-Migration Era

The developmental status of the Three Gorges Reservoir in the post-migration era is expounded.Firstly,positioning of ecological reservoir is incompatible with its development;secondly,adopting the market selection and government-directed migration mode;thirdly,tough task in the post-migration era;fourthly,prevention of geological disasters and environmental management.After the analyses,the adoptable approaches for developing the Three Gorges Reservoir are concluded.The approaches cover supporting migrants and trying to stabilize and enrich them;supporting the development of industries around the reservoir;intensifying the construction of ecological environment in the reservoir;and strengthening the support of central fiscal policies.The policies and suggestions on developing the Three Gorges Reservoir from the perspective of fiscal policies are put forward.Firstly,they include the fiscal and tax measures on prompting ecological migration and stabilizing and enriching migrants.The specific measures include the fiscal and tax measures on promoting the employment of migrants;measures on providing social security for migrants;fiscal subsidies and preferential policies and increasing the input on solving the problems left after reconstruction.Secondly,they are the fiscal and tax measures for promoting the industrial development in the reservoir.The specific contents include displaying the functions of industrial fund to optimize the industrial structure of the reservoir;providing preferential policies on taxes to attract capitals and intensifying the strength of local finance.