【作者】 曾明；

【导师】 张光；

【作者基本信息】 南开大学 ， 政治学理论， 2009， 博士

【摘要】 作为一个单一制国家,中国中央财政所承担的两大职能—维护宏观经济稳定和实现收入分配公平—需要由地方各级政府去具体执行,而转移支付是体现中央政府财政意图的重要财政工具。从分税制改革以来,中央财政转移支付资金的规模不断增大,特别是近年来在一般性转移支付和专项转移支付方面的资金增长都非常迅速。本文要研究的正是这样一个问题,即中央的财政政策目标能在地方基层政府,即县级政府得到实现吗?县级政府是否会执行上级的财政政策?地方政府在执行上级政策时是真的“上有政策,下有对策”么?本文将通过主要的财政政策工具---转移支付的分配过程和支出去向来对此问题进行研究。主要采用嵌入式混合研究方法,以江西省为个案进行实证研究。本文的分析框架是:“官本位”影响下的官员利益最大化理论。它的主要理论基础有三:公共选择理论、以行动者为中心的新制度主义理论、委托—代理理论。这一理论框架的主要内容是:官员作为一个理性人是追求个人利益最大化的,而官本位的传统意识及官员巨大的在职消费和自由裁量权,使得追求晋升或保持连任成为官员的最大利益。上级政府为了保证政策的实施会以绩效考核来考察官员,因此在追求预算最大化的同时,获取政绩和完成上级考核目标就会成为官员的直接追求。基于这一理论框架,根据中央财政政策的变化情况,本文要提出的理论假设是:在当前的制度约束下,出于追求晋升或寻求连任的需要,县级政府会执行上级的财政政策。具体来说就是:2001年前,在中央政府强调“经济政绩”考核,提出“一要吃饭,二要建设”的要求下,县级政府对经济建设支出,行政管理支出、公共安全支出会极为重视;而对不能短期内体现政绩的教育支出、社会保障、医疗卫生等公共产品,县级政府只会满足其基本需求。2002年以后,在中央政府转向重视公共服务,提出财政支出要“保工资、保运转、保稳定、保民生、保重点”的要求后,行政管理费、公共安全支出、卫生医疗支出和教育支出等公共支出会明显地受到重视,而经济建设支出作为“政绩”的重要体现,仍是政府支出的重点。通过对江西省2001年、2005年截面数据和1996-2005年的面板数据的多元回归分析的结果表明:在2001年前,中央财政强调地方财政要做到“一要吃饭,二要建设”,2001年后,中央财政政策对地方财政的要求是“保工资、保运转、保稳定、保重点”。这些政策在财力性转移支付和专项转移支付的使用上得到了较好的体现。而各类财政资金对经济建设的一以贯之的重视,体现了县级政府“以经济建设为中心,发展是第一要务”的政绩观。再次通过对江西省D县及其C乡的实地调研结果也表明:县级政府在分配财政资金时,对专项补助会基本做到专款专用,并会在财力允许的情况下,尽量留足相应的配套资金。而对其他资金的使用则是以“保工资、保运转”,即保证人员经费和公用经费为第一目标,所有的财政收入要首先确保人员工资和机构运转的需要。在确保这些基本的财政支出后,剩余的资金会被县里主要领导投入到市政建设等容易体现“政绩”的项目中去。在乡镇层面,对于那些财政困难的乡镇来说,财政支出主要依赖上级的补助,因而使得它们几乎成了县级政府的职能部门,“乡财县管乡用”的财政体制进一步强化了县级政府对乡镇的控制能力,乡级政府的财政支出自主权非常少。因此获得上级的额外财力支持就成为乡镇主要领导的重要工作内容。他们会尽量去争取各类财政资金,然后把它们用于满足乡镇“保工资、保运转”的需要。除此之外,出于“政绩”的需要,他们也会将有限的可支配财力用在有亮点的“政绩”工程中去,这些工程会在间接上对地方的经济发展和农民增收产生积极影响。全文的结论是:在当前的政府体制下,上级的政策目标,包括中央政府的财政政策目标在地方政府,包括基层的县级政府层面都会得到较好的实施。当然在实施过程中会有一些变通或选择性执行的可能,但这些可能并不会改变中央政策得到执行的基本事实。在现有的制度框架下,为更好地实现中央的财政政策目标,特别是要充分发挥转移支付的作用,本文提出了如下政策建议:一是要完善政府间财政体制,解决好纵向政府间的“职责同构”问题;二是要扩大公民参与,完善预算管理体制。本文的主要创新:研究方法上的创新,采用嵌入式研究方法将定量研究与定性研究混合起来,研究财政转移支付的效应。研究内容上的创新,以转移支付的影响效应为视角,来研究中央财政政策目标在基层政府的实现情况;并将转移支付分为两类,来分别考察它们对县级政府各类主要公共支出的影响。另外还通过实地调研方法,对乡政府的转移支付过程,即乡政府是如何获得转移支付资金,并如何使用的作了深入的研究,特别是较为全面地了解了乡政府在农业税取消前后的支出责任和财政收支状况,掌握了大量的第一手资料。理论上的创新,建立了一个“官本位”影响下的官员利益最大化理论的分析框架,以转移支付在县级政府的政策效应为视角,从经验层面上描述并解释了中央财政政策在县级层面上得到了基本实现的事实,有助于我们进一步深入地理解,为什么在财政支出分权程度非常高的当下中国,中央的政策能够在地方基层政府得到基本实现,中央政府仍然维持着它在地方上的权威。更多还原

【Abstract】 China as one of unitary countries, the two major responsibilities of Centre government—maintaining macro-economy stability and achieving income distribution equality—need to be implemented by local governments at all levels. Fiscal transfers are one of the most important fiscal tools for reflecting the centre governmental financial targets. Since the reform of tax-sharing system in 1994, the fund size of fiscal transfers from center has been enlarged gradually. Then comes the question:how can the centre governmental fiscal policy target be realized at the grass—roots governments,i.e. county governments? Whether will the counties execute them? Whether are there really "the centre having its policies, but the local having their counter-strategies, (shang you Zhengce,xia you duice)",when the lower governments carry out the superior ’s policies? The dissertation employs the nested analysis as a mixed—method strategy to study them through the distribution process and the expenditure orientation of fiscal transfers in Jiangxi Province.What the main analysis framework is : bureaucratic interest maximization based on the official standard(guan benwei). Which founded on a basic of three kinds of main theories: Public Choice, Agency—Centered New Institutionalism, Principal—Agent theory. The framework main contents: official as an economic man will chase their self interest maximization. As an official in China governments, their maximum self interest is chasing promotion or another term of office, because of the traditional impact of official standard, the vast incumbent public money expenditures and the immense official discretions. In order to make sure of the policies will be carried out, the upper—level governments will assess the inferior officials’ performances. So the latter have to work out policy performances(zhengji) and fulfill the assessment goals to enjoy their leaders, besides chasing the budgetary maximization.Based on the theory framework, according to the changing of center fiscal policies, we can bring forward the article’s hypothesis: for position promotion or chasing next official term, the county government main officials will implement the fiscal policies from upper—level governments.To be more concrete, that means: before 2001, under the center requirement of "firstly assure having meals, secondly assure development"(yi yao chifan, er yao jianshe)",the centre government emphasized the assessment of "economic performance", So the county governments overvalued the expenditures on economical construction, administrative management, and public security. As to other public expenditures, which can not reflect short-term policy performances, such as public medicine service, compulsory education, social security, will only be met basic demands.But started form 2002, the center have changed to emphasize public services, required the fiscal expenditures must "to make sure of salary, government operation, social stability, social welfare, key expenditures", then the county governments would emphasize the expenditures on administrative management, public security, medicine service, and compulsory education. Economic construction, as the important symbol of "policy performance", still was the expenditure priority.The cross section data in 2001, 2005, and the panel data over the 1996—2005 period, those come from 80 counties in Jiangxi Province, were employed to test the hypothesis respectively. These models’ estimate findings indicate that, before 2001, the center finance policies had emphasized that local fiscal must achieve "firstly assure having meals, secondly assure development"(yi yao chifan, er yao jianshe)",after then, its emphases turned to "make sure of salary, government operation, social stability, social welfare, key expenditures", which all had been fulfilled from the distribution anger of the block transfers and earmarked transfers(special transfers),and the counties’ finance had always emphasized the expenditures on economic construction, reflecting the county governmental policy performances (zhengji)view of " economic construction is the central point, and development is the first task".The field surveys from "D "County and its"C" township in Jiangxi Province also support these arguements. When the fiscal fund was distributed by the county governments, the special transfers basically were used to the appointed field. And the county governments also set aside corresponding matching fund under the circumstance of self finance is enough. As to other fiscal fund, they will be firstly used to make sure of salaries and governmental operation. That is, assuring the government employees’ salaries and public fund is the preference purpose. Then, the remainders may be fund some programs which easier be appreciated by the superior leaders, such as urban infrastructures.At the township level, especially the poverty ones, their expenditures depended heavily on the upper—level subsidies, which make them be an executive organizations of county governments, and the fiscal system of "township finance is managed by county but used by township(xiangcai xianguang xiangyong)", further strengthens the county’s control to the township governments. So, the township governments have to try their best to apply for extra fiscal transfers from every upper-level governments. They make efforts to apply for all kinds of fiscal fund, then use them to meet the demands of "make sure of salary and governmental operation". In addition, they also use some of the "begged funds" to the "highlight dot (liangdian)" program, which can be appraised by their leaders, but these programs sometimes indirectly influence the local economic development and the peasant’s income growth.The dissertation concludes: in the current government system, the upper-level government policy targets, including the center fiscal policies’ will gain good implementation at every level local governments, also including the grassroots levels, county governments. Certainly, during the process of implementing, there are some possibilities of alterative or elective enforcements, but they can not change the basic facts that the center policies have been enforced at the grassroots levels. Under the current system framework, in order to better realize the center government policy targets, especially make good use of the fiscal transfers, some suggestions are given: one, we should make the intergovernmental fiscal system better, solve the problem of "Isomorphic Responsibility"; two, enlarge the citizen involvements, and improve the budgetary management system.The main innovation points in this dissertation:first of all, the research methodology innovation, the nested analysis methodology is employed to combine the qualitative research with the quantitative research, then to explore the effect of fiscal transfers. Second, the research content innovation, take the transfers’ policy effect as a research angle, the paper studies the implementation status of the center fiscal policy targets at the local governments’ levels, in order to do so, the fiscal transfers are divided into two halves to interpret their impacts on every kind of county governments’ public expenditures respectively. In addition, in the way of field surveys, we explore the township governmental process of fiscal transfers, i.e. how the township gains its grants and uses them, and learn thoroughly the township government expenditure responsibilities and its current fiscal situation. Third, theoretic innovation, take the policy effect of fiscal transfers as a researching angle, a analysis framework—bureaucratic interest maximization based on the official standard(guan benwei) is constructed to explore and explain the facts that the center fiscal policies have been exerted at the county level, which helps us better understand, although the degree of fiscal decentralization is very high in China, as a unitary country, why the center government policies can be implemented at the grassroots levels, the center still holds the authority over the local governments.更多还原