【作者】 于国旺；

【导师】 李建发；

【作者基本信息】 厦门大学 ， 会计学， 2008， 博士

【摘要】 当前,政府会计改革正在西方国家如火如荼地展开着,并且受到了有关国际组织的高度重视。但研究表明,在这些国家的政府会计改革过程中存在着一个似是而非的“绩效悖论”问题。本文以新制度经济学、公共选择以及其他学科作为理论依据,在阐明政府会计契约和制度两大属性的基础上逐步展开分析,从而在理论上深刻解读这一问题的形成原因,并提出一些有益于我国改革预算会计、建立政府会计的政策建议。这种研究不仅可以进一步拓展、丰富政府会计理论的内容,提高政府会计理论的解释力,弥补单纯从技术观角度探讨政府会计改革问题的理论缺陷,而且有利于我国正确、系统、全面地认识西方发达国家政府会计改革的经验教训,制定科学规范、合理可行的政府会计改革实施策略。作为经济组织,政府是一种负责提供公共物品的生产性“企业”,它们本质上是一系列契约关系的集合体。在这种假设下,政府会计同时具有契约和制度两大属性:前者意味着,政府会计本身是一种有边界的不完全契约,它有助于订立、履行和解除政府契约,但其发挥作用的前提条件是理性经济主体需要和利用政府会计信息进行监督和决策;后者意味着,政府会计必须至少在形式上符合相关制度的要求、屈从于制度压力的影响,所以它在很大程度上就成为了制度的塑造物和实际承载体。从总体上讲,这两种客观存在的属性要求我们应当分别从“效率机制”与“合法性机制”两个维度来认识政府会计问题。政府会计改革的经济本质在于契约的变更或替代。但是,它往往又体现为一种新的政府会计模式或者更广泛地说技术工具的引入。而且,这种经济本质不因政府会计改革源于相关制度的变迁而改变。对一个提供公共物品的政府机构而言,其会计改革一般服务于确保契约绩效和提高契约合法性两大目标,它们分别对应于政府会计的契约和制度两大属性。但是,这两种目标对政府会计的要求可能不完全一致,甚至有时还是截然相反的。这恰好形成了研究政府会计改革“绩效悖论”问题成因的突破口。而且,这也决定了我们必须关注宏观层面上影响政府会计改革的制度结构和微观层面上单个政府机构中的契约及其激励效应。通过宏观层面上的制度变迁来推进微观层面上的政府会计改革的做法具有必然性。其中,影响政府会计改革的制度以强制或提供激励的方式,使其规定内化于各个政府机构的会计契约之中。当单个政府机构依据制度要求进行会计改革时,这不仅实现了提高契约合法性的目标,而且也引入了新的会计形式,改善了缔约者获取信息的条件,使他们可以获得有助于监督代理人的除预算会计信息之外的更多信息。但由于受到激励结构因素的限制,政府会计改革难以影响监督政府代理人的数量,政府会计信息不一定被用以监督代理人。这时,行使剩余控制权时的代理问题和代理成本不会减少,政府机构提供公共物品时的绩效难以提高。在这种条件下,政府会计改革“绩效悖论”问题就形成了。可见,制度主导下的政府会计改革是一项非常复杂和具有挑战性的系统工程。本文的创新之处主要体现在:1.选取政府会计改革“绩效悖论”作为研究主题,在理论上解释了为什么政府会计改革不一定能够实现人们预期的高绩效目标,突破了我国仅着重于从必要性和实施方式两个角度研究政府会计改革问题的局限性。2.将政府机构视为负责提供公共物品的生产性“企业”,阐明了它们作为一系列契约关系集合体的经济组织性质,而且在这一前提条件下论证了政府会计的契约和制度属性,明确了政府会计与其相关制度之间的区别和联系。3.在微观层面上深入研究了政府会计改革的经济本质和目标,超越了单从引入新型技术工具、提高政府绩效角度研究政府会计改革问题的限制。4.在宏观层面上深入研究了影响政府会计改革的制度结构问题。其中,从非正式制度(主要是意识形态)角度来理解公共受托责任、新公共管理、财政透明度概念,并且阐述了影响政府会计改革的意识形态所具有的基本特征。5.在特定政府机构这一契约关系集合体框架内,系统地分析了官僚、政治家和社会公众各自契约的特征及其激励效应,进而探讨了他们对待政府会计信息的经济行为,避免了先验地假定使用者会自发需求和利用政府会计信息的研究缺陷。更多还原

【Abstract】 At present, governmental accounting reforms are extensively being carried out in western countries and have been paid highly close attention to by related international organizations. But the researchers have made clear that there exist an inconsistent problem named as "performance paradox". The paper takes neo-institutional economics, public choice and other subjects as theoretical bases, clarifies the contractual and institutional natures of governmental accounting in theory, then progressively explains clearly the cause of formation of this problem, and puts forward some proposals about how to reform budget accounting and establish governmental accounting in our country. This research not only expands further the contents and improves the explanatory power of governmental accounting theories, which makes up the theoretical deficiency of discussing the problems of governmental accounting reforms only from technical point of view, but also is helpful for our country to recognize accurately, systematically and roundly the experience and lessons of governmental accounting reforms in western countries and draw up scientific reasonable viable strategies of governmental accounting reforms.As economic organizations, governmental sectors are productive firms, which are charge of supplying public goods. They are essentially the connex of contracts. Under this assumption, governmental accounting simultaneously has contractual and institutional natures: the former means that governmental accounting itself is a kind of bounded incomplete contract and contributes to agree to, perform and relieve governmental contracts. But it takes effect on the prerequisite that rational economic entities demand and utilize governmental accounting information in order to supervise agents and make decisions; the latter means that governmental accounting is at least in line with related institutions in form and lends itself to institutional pressures. So, it becomes the institutional results and actual carriers to a great degree. In the mass, these two objective natures require that we should recognize governmental accounting problems respectively from the "efficiency mechanism" and the "legitimacy mechanism".The economic nature of governmental accounting reforms is the modification or replacement of contracts. However, it usually gives expression to applying a new governmental accounting model or technical tool in broad terms. In addition, this nature won’t alter, although governmental accounting reforms are due to related institutional change. To a governmental sector supplying public goods, accounting reforms generally serve to achieve two goals, namely ensure contractual efficiency and improve contractual legitimacy, which separately accord with the contractual and institutional natures of governmental accounting. But their requests to governmental accounting are probably completely inconsistent, even sometimes as wide as poles apart. This exactly becomes a sally port of researching the cause of formation of governmental accounting reforms "performance paradox". Moreover, this also determines that we should focus on the macroscopical institutions influencing governmental accounting reforms and the microcosmic contracts and their incentive effect in a single governmental sector.It is necessary that microcosmic governmental accounting reforms are promoted by macroscopical institutional change. The institutions are internalized in the accounting contracts of every governmental sector by means of enforcement or incentive. When a governmental sector performs accounting reforms, it will achieve the goal of improving contractual legitimacy. It will also establish a new accounting form and make contracting entities’ conditions of obtaining information better, namely in addition to budget information, it will help them receive more information, which is beneficial for them to supervise agents. But because of the restrictions of incentive structure factors, governmental accounting information is hard to influence the quantity of supervising agents. So, governmental accounting information is not necessarily utilized to supervise agents. Then, agent problems and agency cost will not decrease and the performance of governmental sectors supplying public goods will not enhance. Under this condition, the problem of governmental accounting reforms "performance paradox" will appear. Obviously, governmental accounting reforms are a very complex and challenging systemic undertaking.This paper’s innovations are mainly presented as follows:1. Chooses the problem of governmental accounting reforms "performance paradox" as research subject and explains why governmental accounting reforms are not necessarily achieve the expected goal of high performance in theory. It breaks through the limitations of mainly researching the problems of governmental accounting reforms only from its necessity and implementation methods in our country.2. Looks on governmental sectors as productive firms responsible for supplying public goods and clarifies their economic nature as the connex of contracts. On this basis, the paper also demonstrates the contractual and institutional natures of governmental accounting and differentiates between governmental accounting and its related institutions.3. Deeply researches the economic nature and goals of governmental accounting reforms at the micro-level, which breaks through the limitations of researching the problems of governmental accounting reforms only from adopting a new technical tool in order to improve governmental sectors’ performance.4. Deeply researching the institutions effecting governmental accounting reforms. Public accountability, new public management and fiscal transparency are all regarded as informal institutions (mainly ideologies). And this paper elaborates the characters of these ideologies effecting governmental accounting reforms.5. Systematically analyzes the contracts and their incentive effect of bureaucrats, politicians and the general public. On this basis, the paper also discusses their behaviors to treat governmental accounting information, which avoids the research defect of transcendentally supposing that users will spontaneously demand and utilize governmental accounting information.更多还原