Collected Essays on Finance and Economics ›› 2023, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (2): 14-23.

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Fiscal Decentralization, Financial Decentralization and Imbalanced Economic Structure

ZHANG Tong1, WANG Wenfu2   

  1. 1. School of Public Finance and Taxation, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China;
    2. School of Economics, Sichuan University, Chengdu 611130, China
  • Received:2021-12-27 Online:2023-02-10 Published:2023-02-14

财政分权、金融分权与经济结构性失衡

张彤1, 王文甫2   

  1. 1.西南财经大学财政税务学院,四川 成都 611130;
    2.四川大学经济学院,四川 成都 611130
  • 作者简介:张彤(1996—),女,甘肃天水人,西南财经大学财政税务学院博士生;王文甫(1970—),男,安徽芜湖人,四川大学经济学院教授,博士。
  • 基金资助:
    国家社会科学基金项目(18BJL027)

Abstract: In recent years, with the pursuit of high-quality economic development, the economic structural imbalance hidden in the past behind the high growth rate has gradually surpassed the economic aggregate problem and become a major economic problem that needs to be solved in China. The existing researches on the measurement and causes of economic structural imbalance have carried out a lot of discussions, which have important enlightenment significance. However, it should not be ignored that there are at least two deficiencies in existing studies: First, there is a lack of reasonable measurement of economic structural imbalance at the provincial level; Second, the relationship between thefiscal system and the financial system is separated, and the causes of economic structural imbalance are studied only from a single line.
Based on the above deficiencies, this paper first constructs an evaluation system including five sub-items and fifteen basic indicators of the investment-consumption structure, the industrial structure, the financial structure, the balance of payments structure and the regional economic structure according to China's national economic accounting system (2016), and uses the principal component analysis method to calculate the imbalance degree of China's provincial economic structure from 2005 to 2017. The findings are as follows: First, after a rapid decline, the economic structural imbalance has been characterized by fluctuations since 2009, and has been on the rise since 2016, indicating that the economic structural imbalance needs continuous attention. Second, the decentralized trend of economic structure imbalance in various provinces has begun to stagnate after converging to a certain range, indicating that the current imbalance is a difficult problem left over from the gradual reform, and the government should pay more attention to the causes and seek solutions.
Next, on the basis of sorting out the evolution history and the main characteristics of China's fiscal and financial system, this paper analyzes the mechanism of fiscal decentralization and financial decentralization affecting economic structural imbalance, and verifies it with the two-step system GMM model. The findings are as follows: First, fiscal decentralization aggravates economic structural imbalance. Second, the explicit financial centralization weakens economic structural imbalance, while the implicit financial decentralization has the opposite effect. Third, the centralization of financial funds has a greater weakening effect on economic structural imbalances than that caused by the increase of fiscal autonomy. Fourth, the implicit financial decentralization has significantly weakened the effect of fiscal autonomy on alleviating economic structural imbalances. That is, when local governments have ever-increasing fiscal funds, if their financial funds also increase, it is not conducive to the improvement of the economic structure. In addition, the moderating mediating effect model is used to test the mechanism. It is found that in the mechanism of fiscal decentralization acting on economic structural imbalance through investment impulse, the moderating effect of the implicit financial decentralization is significantly negative. That is, when the local financial resources are reduced, in order to ensure the operation of the basic functions of the government and the rigid expenditure, the investment-driven growth mode is usually adopted. At this point, if the degree of the implicit financial decentralization is high, more credit resources can be alienated into fiscal funds, and the impulse of local governments to promote the economic growth by investment will inevitably be weakened. The enlightenment of this paper is that the problem of economic structural imbalance is rooted in China's fiscal and financial system. We should not only start from the reform of the fiscal system, but also follow up the reform in the financial field. Only through the coordination between the two can we improve the economic structure.

Key words: Imbalanced Economic Structure, Fiscal Decentralization, Financial Explicit Centralization, Financial Implicit Decentralization

摘要: 本文基于中国式经济分权的大背景研究经济结构性失衡问题,在分析财政分权与金融分权影响经济结构性失衡的作用机制、提出研究假说的基础上进行实证验证。本文主要结论如下:相比于财政分权,金融分权变化导致的经济结构变动更大;金融显性集权会显著改善经济结构,财政分权与金融隐性分权则相反。考虑财政金融联动特征后,本文还发现,金融隐性分权在财政分权影响经济结构性失衡的机制中起负向调节作用,财政分权与金融分权需互相配合才可达到缓解经济结构性失衡的效果。

关键词: 经济结构性失衡, 财政分权, 金融显性集权, 金融隐性分权

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