Abstract:

Land Finance and local government bonds are important financing channels for local governments. The evolution of the issuance and repayment modes of local government bonds is directly related to the financing scale of local governments, which will affect the local government land transfer behavior through the mechanism of local finance. Taking the 2014 “Self-issuing Self-paying” pilot implementation as a natural experiment, this paper employs the difference-in-differences method to identify the influence of local government bonds “Self-issuing Self-paying” mode on local government land transfer behavior. The study finds that under the “Self-issuing Self-paying” mode, local governments are responsible for repaying the bonds directly, so they have the motivation to change the land transfer behavior in order to obtain more land-transferring fees. Moreover, there is a stronger incentive to change the behavior of land transfer and increase the revenue of land finance in areas with a fiscal deficit. Further empirical results show that the effect of the “Self-issuing Self-paying” model on local government land transfer is influenced by the local fiscal deficit and the economic catch-up pressure. Finally, based on the research conclusion, we put forward some policy inspirations for reference.

Key words: Local Government Bonds, Self-issuing Self-paying, Local Governments, Land Finance, Difference-in-differences

摘要：

地方债和土地财政都是地方政府重要的融资渠道,地方债发还模式的演变直接关系到地方政府的融资规模,进而会通过地方财政的作用机制影响地方政府的土地出让行为。本文将2014年进行的地方政府债券“自发自还”试点作为一项准自然实验,采用双重差分法检验地方债“自发自还”模式对地方政府土地出让行为的影响。研究发现,在“自发自还”模式下,地方政府是地方债务发还的主体,直接面临着还本付息的财政压力,存在动机改变土地出让行为从而获得更多的土地财政收入,且财政非平衡地区改变土地出让行为增加土地财政收入的动机更为强烈。本文进一步检验表明,“自发自还”模式对地方政府土地出让行为的作用过程受地方财政赤字和经济赶超压力的影响。最后,本文提出了可供借鉴的政策启示。

关键词: 自发自还, 地方政府, 土地财政, 双重差分法