如何测度预算软约束?——来自1998至2014年我国中央政府对省级政府净补助的证据  

How to Measure the Soft Budget Constraint?——vidence from the Net Subsidy of Central Government in China from 1998 to 2014

作　　者：高德步[1] 何富彩[1] 

机构地区：[1]中国人民大学经济学院

出　　处：《投资研究》2017年第1期131-145,共15页Review of Investment Studies

摘　　要：预算软约束源自动态承诺的不一致性,然而,实证中并不容易观察到预算软约束的证据。本文利用省级政府上一年所获得的中央政府的净补助收入作为其当年通过中央政府净补助弥补本级财政赤字的预期,由于当年来自中央政府的净补助仍然包括诸多不确定的部分,这一预期可以测度省级政府财政层面的预算软约束。研究发现,省级政府具有显著的财政赤字激励,凸显其预算软约束。考虑到地区之间针对中央政府净补助的竞争以及地区差异可能影响省级政府对来自中央政府净补助收入的预期,本文分别进行工具变量回归以及稳健性检验。结果表明,即使考虑省级政府在中央政府净补助上的温和竞争以及中央政府净补助支出的地区差异,仍然能够观察到省级政府财政上的预算软约束。This paper empirically investigates the problem of soft budgets originating from the regional finance based on a dy- namic commitment, which causes much trouble to measure the soft budget because it isn＇t obvious. In the fixed effect model, we use the local government net subsidies acquired from the central government in the last year as the expected net subsidies in the future. As far as the current system of transfer payment is concerned, the net subsidies from the central government still include some ambiguities. In this sense, the expectation on net subsidy from the central government in the next year can be re- garded as the fiscal soft budget of the provincial government. The result of fixed effect regression shows that the local govern- ments have statistically significant incentive for financial deficits, which reveals that the fiscal soft budget constraint of provin- cial government. Considering both the provincial governmental competition against the net subsidy from central government and regional heterogeneity of current inter-governmental transfer system perhaps result in the endogenous expectation on the net subsidies from the central government, the authors use instrumental regression and fixed effect model to test the robustness of current fiscal soft budget constrain of provincial government. The results show that the fiscal soft budget of local govern- ments is popular and stable even taking the gentle competition originating from the provincial against the central governmental net subsidy governments and regional heterogeneity of central governmental net subsidy.

关 键 词：预算软约束 中央政府净补助 工具变量 地区间财政竞争 

分 类 号：F812.3[经济管理—财政学]