Abstract: Can the fiscal legislation with the core of regulating the behavior of government revenue and expenditure improve the efficiency of fiscal expenditure? Based on the legal text and budget practice, this paper systematically expounds the internal logic of the new Budget Law to regulate the behavior of government revenue and expenditure, and analyzes in depth the path of its influence on the efficiency of fiscal expenditure.With the help of the new Budget Law, a quasi-natural experiment of the fiscal system reform, this paper uses the data of 246 prefecture-level cities in China from 2012 to 2018 to empirically analyze the causal relationship between the new Budget Law and the fiscal expenditure efficiency.It is found that the implementation of the new Budget Law has not significantly improved the efficiency of local governments' fiscal expenditure, which is verified by various robustness tests.This insignificant effect is not the result of the interference of the mixed effects of other policies, nor is it caused by the impact effect of regional heterogeneity.Further analysis shows that due to the limitations of the budget practice, none of the path mechanisms deduced from the legal text can be empirically verified.The reasons are closely related to the lack of full-caliber budget management, the lack of capacity of budget departments, the need to improve budget procedures and the lack of financial transparency in our country.The research findings of this paper can provide experience reference for perfecting the modern budget system.

Key words: New Budget Law, Fiscal Expenditure Efficiency, Comprehensive Standardization, Modern Budget System

摘要： 以规范政府收支行为为核心的财政立法能够提高财政支出效率吗？本文立足法律文本和预算实践系统阐述了新《预算法》规范政府收支行为的内在逻辑,深入分析了其影响财政支出效率的作用路径。借助新《预算法》这一财政制度改革构建准自然实验,运用我国246个地级市2012—2018年的数据,实证分析了新《预算法》和财政支出效率间的因果关系。研究结果显示:新《预算法》的实施未显著改善地方政府财政支出效率,并通过了各种稳健性检验;这种不显著的影响效应不是其他政策的混杂效应干扰的结果,也不是由区域异质性影响效应造成的;进一步分析发现,囿于预算实践,根据法律文本推演的路径机制均未得到实证验证。究其原因,这和我国预算未实现全口径管理、预算部门能力不足、预算程序有待完善以及财政透明度不高等密切相关。本文研究结论可为健全现代预算制度提供经验参考。

关键词: 新《预算法》, 财政支出效率, 全面规范, 现代预算制度