中国式分权、地方财政模式与公共物品供给：理论与实证研究

【作者】 傅勇；

【导师】 张军；

【作者基本信息】 复旦大学 ， 西方经济学， 2007， 博士

【摘要】 分权是一个世界现象，增长却不是。地方政府能否顺利地转为增长型的政府则解释了分权绩效差异的相当部分。大国发展道路的一个特征就在于，必须架构一个良好的政府治理模式，以保证地方政府为增长而不是为寻租而竞争。本文试从地方财政收支结构和公共物品供给的角度，考察中国式分权是如何成功地塑造了地方政府的增长取向的，并研判分权治理和与之相伴随的政府竞争对财政支出结构和公共物品供给效率所造成的成本和扭曲。经济分权同垂直的政治管理体制紧密结合是中国式分权的核心内涵。在财政体制上，中国属世界上分权程度最高的国家之列；地方政府在推动经济增长尤其是供给公共物品上占据主导地位，对经济增长模式和公共部门效率起着决定性的影响。本文的理论模型证明，中国式分权的成功之处在于：有效的财政激励保证地方政府能稳定地分享到经济增长的果实，而中央政府以政绩考核为核心的政治激励则将地方政府的注意力集中到经济增长而不是租金上；与此同时，对外开放所带来的外资使得地方政府政府不能囿于本地区的既得利益。这些方面共同解释了为什么中国的地方政府特别关心经济增长，并转变为增长型的政府。然而，虽然政府在公共物品上投入对于长期经济增长和居民福利意义重大，但对地方官员任期内的经济绩效却少有助益。因而，为增长而竞争也就成了财政支出结构扭曲的重要激励来源：降低对基础设施建设的投入而增加对公共物品供给的投入将提升社会福利。另外，考虑到要素流动性的不同，地方政府将偏向“人头税”组织自己的财政收入，并降低针对商品和资本的税率；而税收结构的偏向导致了财政支出的进一步倾斜。实证研究支持上述结论。通过构造财政分权和地方政府竞争的指标，利用1994-2004年的省际面板数据，第5章实证研究了分权和竞争对地方政府财政支出结构的影响，并利用1986—2004年的面板数据检验财政支出结构的跨时差异和跨区差异。研究发现，中国的财政分权以及基于政绩考核下的政府竞争，造就了地方政府公共支出结构“重基本建设、轻人力资本投资和公共服务”的明显扭曲，竞争对支出结构的最终影响则取决于分权程度，而1994年之后包括科教兴国、西部大开发在内的现行重大政策并没有有效缓解这种偏向。同时，西部开发战略和分税制改革、所得税收入分享改革改变了政府的公共支出行为和竞争行为。第6章实证检验了财政体制和分权治理是否改善了地方政府对公共物品的有效供给。研究发现，在控制财政资源差异以及其他外生变量之后，财政分权显著而可观地降低了基础教育和城市公共服务的供给结果。在政府治理方面，高度复制的政府体制使得财政负担在经济发展较落后的地区更为严重，并影响到公共物品供给；反腐败程度的提高能改善基础教育的质量，同时降低某些城市公共服务的供给，这表明，一些公共领域中存在着较大的腐败空间。本文认为，要想将地方政府的注意力转移到公共物品上，还必须依赖适当的政府治理。本文的安排如下。第1章提出问题；第2章分类梳理与本文主题相关的已有文献，并在相应处给出必要的评论；第3章考察与地方政府的财政模式和行为取向相联的特征事实和制度背景；第4章给出一个考察地方政府财政收支结构和行为取向的理论框架；第5章实证研究地方政府财政支出结构偏向的决定；第6章实证检验财政分权和政府治理架构是否改善了基础教育和城市公共物品的有效供给；第7章总结全文。更多还原

【Abstract】 Decentralization is a worldwide phenomenon, while growth is not. Theperformance of decentralization is largely determined by the fact that whether localgovernments are growth-preserving ones. A decentralized nation needs goodgovernance to maintain local governments rival for growth rather for rents. This paperprovides a framework to fully account for how Chinese Style decentralization turnedlocal governments to preserve growth, and how decentralized governance andgovernments’ competition induced some distorting costs as far as fiscal expenditurecomposition and public goods provision concerned.The combination of political centralization and economic decentralization is theunique character of Chinese Style decentralization. As Chapter 3 implies, China isamong the most decentralized countries in the world, and local governments playcrucial roles to push growth and provide basic public goods. The model in Chapter 4demonstrates that how the effective fiscal incentives and the relative evaluation-basedincentive schemes ensure local governments rival for growth rather for rents.Meanwhile, foreign direct investments (following the open-up policy) lead localgovernments can not only care about the present interests any more. Thus, the rivalfor growth is an important incentive inducing the fiscal expenditure composition bias,social welfare can be increased if parts of fiscal resources are transferred frominfrastructure construction to public goods provision. Moreover, given the factors’different mobility, local governments prefer head tax to commodity tax to organizetheir revenues, which can deteriorate the fiscal expenditure composition bias.The following positive researches support these propositions. While a recentbody of theoretical literature discusses the local governments’ bias on their pubicexpenditure composition, this paper contributes a deeper sight to this phenomenonwith the context of the Chinese Style federalism, which consolidates the economicdecentralization with political centralization. Using provincial panel data from 1994to 2004, we find that fiscal decentralization and government competition indeed causea significant and remarkable expenditure bias: local governments emphasize capitalconstruction while neglecting their responsibility to provide science, education,culture, and health care. Furthermore, some principal policies implemented by thecentral government even exacerbate this bias. The Chinese Style federalism is inducing more and more costs as though it is a successful mechanism to fostereconomic growth.Chapter 6 checks the question that whether fiscal decentralization and presentgovernance increase the public goods provision in local governments. When regionaldifferences in fiscal resources and other exogenous variables are controlled, fiscaldecentralization decrease effective provision of primary education and municipalpublic services significantly and remarkably. As for governance, the highly replicatehierarchy is a heavier burden for less developed areas, which worsens their publicgoods provision. The efforts to anticorruption increase the quality of primaryeducation while decrease some items of municipal public services, which implies thatthe rent space is quite large in some public fields. Thus, an appropriate governancepackage is required to transfer local governments’ focus to public goods provision.The paper is organized as follows. Chapter 1 is an introduction. Chapter 2surveys the literatures concerning the theme, and provides comments to them whennecessary. Chapter 3 analyses the stylized facts and institutionalized backgroundsabout local governments’ fiscal pattern and their behavior inclination. Chapter 4 givesa framework to study local fiscal expenditure composition and behavior inclination.Chapter 5 discusses the determination of fiscal expenditure composition empirically.Chapter 6 answers the question that whether fiscal decentralization have enhancepublic goods provision empirically. Chapter 7 concludes.更多还原