Abstract: Reducing budget deviation is the basic requirement of budget management. This paper regards the smart city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment in government digital governance, and uses a multi-period difference-in-differences method to evaluate the impact of the smart city pilot policy on government budget deviation. Typical facts reveal that the budget deviation of prefecture-level cities shows a downward trend during the sample period, and there exist phenomena of over-revenue and over-expenditure in budget deviations of most of the prefecture-level cities, which is different from the budget deviation scenarios of over-revenue and under-expenditure at the provincial level found in existing studies. The empirical results show that the smart city pilot policy significantly reduces government budget deviation, and the budget deviation of pilot cities is 17.05% lower than that of non-pilot cities on average. This conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests and endogenous processing. Improving the quality of budget preparation and strengthening budget execution constraints are an effective way for digital governance to reduce government budget deviation. The heterogeneity analysis shows that cities with a high level of financial development and a high level of human capital can better play the role of digital governance in reducing budget deviation. In view of the above conclusions, this paper puts forward policy suggestions from the aspects of accelerating the construction of a new model of government digital governance, exploring the multidimensional path of digital governance to reduce budget deviation, and improving the flexibility and inclusiveness of policy implementation.

Key words: Digital Governance, Smart City Pilot Policy, Budget Deviation, Multi-period Difference-in-differences Method

摘要： 数字化治理能否起到降低预算偏离的效果？鉴于降低预算偏离是预算管理的基本要求,本文将智慧城市试点政策作为政府数字化治理的准自然实验,利用多期双重差分方法评估智慧城市试点政策对政府预算偏离的影响。典型事实显示,样本期内地级市预算偏离呈现出不断下降趋势,大部分地级市预算偏离表现为超收、超支现象,这与已有研究发现省级层面超收和少支的预算偏离情形有所不同。实证结果表明,智慧城市试点政策显著降低了政府预算偏离,试点城市比非试点城市的预算偏离平均降低了17.05%。该结论经过一系列稳健性检验和内生性处理之后依然成立。提高预算编制质量与强化预算执行约束,是数字化治理降低政府预算偏离的有效途径。异质性分析表明,金融发展程度高、人力资本水平高的城市能更好发挥数字化治理降低政府预算偏离的作用。针对上述结论,本文从加快构建政府数字化治理新模式、探索数字化治理降低预算偏离的多维路径、提升政策执行的灵活性和包容性等方面提出对策建议。

关键词: 数字化治理, 智慧城市试点政策, 预算偏离, 多期双重差分