Abstract: Like the central vertical transfer payment, the inter-provincial horizontal transfer payment plays an important role in the regional balanced development strategy. However, little research has paid attention to it. This paper takes advantage of the exogenous changes brought about by the “19 provinces and cities counterpart support policy” implemented in Xinjiang in 2010, and adopts the DID method to evaluate the characteristics of government expansion and expenditure structure bias caused by horizontal transfer payments. The findings are as follows: (1) In terms of government scale, inter-provincial counterpart support has promoted the significant expansion of local government fiscal expenditure; (2) In terms of government expenditure bias, the aid funds obtained by local governments have typical asymmetric features in the expenditure structure, which is severely biased towards the expenditure direction of “strong visibility, easy assessment and quick results”. The poverty alleviation goal of counterpart assistance makes local government financial expenditures have a certain livelihood orientation. But it is still mainly reflected in the direction of productive livelihood projects with strong visibility, while non-productive livelihood expenditures are relatively insufficient. In this regard, combined with the counterpart support system, the article carries out theoretical analysis and interpretation from the perspective of local officials' assessment.

Key words: Counterpart Assistance, Horizontal Transfer Payment, Expenditure Structure

摘要： 与中央纵向转移支付一样,省际横向转移支付在区域平衡发展战略中具有重要地位,然而很少有研究关注。鉴于此,本文利用2010年在新疆地区实施的“19省市对口支援政策”带来的外生变化,采用双重差分方法评估横向转移支付引致的政府规模膨胀和支出结构偏向特征。研究发现:(1)在政府规模方面,省际对口支援推进了地方政府财政支出规模显著扩张;(2)在政府支出偏向方面,地方政府获得的援助资金在支出结构上存在典型的非对称特征,即严重偏向“可视性强、容易考核和见效快”支出方向。对口支援的扶贫目标使地方政府财政支出具有一定的民生指向,但依然主要体现在可视性强的生产性民生项目方向,而非生产性民生支出相对不足。对此,本文结合对口支援制度从地方官员考核视角进行了理论分析和解读。本文研究对于落实大型区域政策的民生目标具有一般性意义,并为区域平衡发展提供了政策启示和改进思路。

关键词: 对口支援, 横向转移支付, 支出结构