社会组织管理体制:地方政府的创新实践

本文从中央与地方这一空间维度审视地方政府创新实践及其对我国社会组织管理体制改革的推动作用。在当前中央社会组织管理体制改革的进展背后,存在一轮如火如荼、方兴未艾的地方政府创新实践,这些地方实践各有特色,并经过相互竞争和学习,在管理目的、理念、主体等方面形成一些共同取向。对创新的动力进行分析发现,各地的创新探索既非社会需求自下而上的压力驱动,亦非源自中央自上而下的指示和动员,而是地方党政领导思想解放、主动创新的结果。本文认为地方创新有力地推动了中央层次的社会组织管理体制改革进程,具体而言有三种机制,即改革预期包围、改革意志传递和改革备选政策供给。     

What Causes the Local Fiscal Crisis in China: the role of intermediaries

Local governments in China are seriously under-funded relative to their assigned expenditure responsibilities for public services, resulting in the infamous ‘revenue–expenditure gap’. The dominant explanation of local fiscal difficulties given in the literature refers to central government behaviour, namely the excessive centralization of tax revenue, but it does not tally with the large flows of central subsidies to local coffers in more recent years. The alternative account we put forward stresses the working of an intermediary level embedded in the multi-tiered governance structure of a large country, and the interaction between local officials' fiscal behaviour and the revenue–expenditure gap. Employing fine-grained analysis of aggregate statistics and local case data, we argue that broader intergovernmental dynamics and practices of local intermediaries, and not only central government policy, are critical to fiscal health and government performance at the county level.     

Business‐Government Relations in Industrializing Rural China: A principal‐agent perspective

This paper explains why rural enterprises prosper in the post-Mao reform era. Based on a case study of Shaanxi province, the paper argues that the institutional arrangements in rural China under economic reforms are conducive to sustained economic growth because the principal‐agent problem is alleviated in two dimensions. First, the interests of local government officials and enterprises overlap. Prompted by the fiscal pressures on local governments as a result of the fiscal reforms, particularly the 1994 tax-assignment reform, local governments are eager to promote local industrial growth. Apart from absorbing rural surplus labour and contributing to the provision of communal welfare to local residents, rural enterprises provide local governments with tax and non-tax revenues to finance their expenditure obligations. In return, local governments provide preferential aid to their enterprises in the form of tax and credit privileges. Second, the principal‐agent problem is abated by a closer effort-and-reward link for the various parties involved in the operation of rural enterprises.     

Grain Procurement,Tax Instrument and Peasant Burdens during China's Rural Transition

In this paper, we argue that China's grain procurement system as a major instrument in rural taxation survived the communes and lost its importance only gradually in recent years. However, as agricultural liberalization progressed, the traditional tax instruments of ‘tax deduction prior to grain procurement payment’ and implicit taxation through ‘price scissors’ gradually eroded. Under such a circumstance, local governments in agriculture-based regions resorted to informal fees collected directly from individual rural households while the more industrialized regions shifted to non-agricultural taxes that are less costly in terms of tax collection. Empirical evidence based on a large panel data set supports our hypotheses of rural taxation in China.     

治理河流污染的制度激励悖论分析

为了治理日益加剧的河流污染,从中央到地方都相应出台了各种激励措施,但是这些措施并未起到显著效果,却形成了制度激励悖论。排污企业与地方政府在经历了新政策出台初的短暂扰动后,恢复原有均衡。要打破这一均衡,必须改变博弈各方的收益结构、可选策略集以及信息结构等,才有望建立符合科学发展观的最优均衡。     

Survival Strategies of Township Governments in Rural China: from predatory taxation to land trade

Based on my fieldwork in rural China in 2004–2005, where I conducted semi-structured interviews with 108 local cadres and villagers, this article explores the survival strategies of township governments as the most recent tax reforms (i.e. the tax-for-fee reform and the abolition of the agricultural tax) have been implemented since 2000. It argues that township governments have taken adaptive strategies to maintain over-quota personnel even under pressure to reduce it. It finds that the strategies have changed from predatory taxation in the 1990s to land trade in the last decade, while the implementation of the rural tax reforms has brought fiscal crises in agricultural villages. Local officials have a limited incentive to respond to collective resistance on taxation but do not have the same incentive on land disputes.     

多重博弈:税费改革后乡村基础设施投入面临的困境——以湖北鄂州市z乡东大堤维修为例

税费改革明确了农民的税费负担 ,但是诸如乡村基础设施之类的公共产品仍然需要投入 ,谁投入、如何收等问题仍然存在。在乡村基础设施投入问题上 ,市县政府、乡镇政府以及农民 (其代表为村委会 )都根据自己的理性进行博弈 ,而博弈结果是乡镇政府最终倾向于继续收费 ,农民被动交纳。这就形成了税费之外的收费继续出现的局面 ,进而陷入“黄宗羲定律”怪圈的困境之中。因此 ,税费改革还需要相配套的改革同时进行。     

论税务机关征管、税制因素与纳税遵从

纳税遵从也叫纳税人遵从或税收遵从，是指纳税人必须遵照并服从税法的规定来按期申报、按期足额缴税。税收遵从是依法治税的体现，只要存在税收，纳税人就必须要按税法规定来履行纳税义务。影响纳税人遵从行为的因素是多方面的，既有纳税人自身的因素，也有社会环境的因素，另外，税务人员本身的执法与服务水平、税务机关征管模式、税务机关的征管与处罚力度、税制简便程度等因素也影响着纳税遵从。     

激励结构与中国地方政府对内对外行为差异

对内地方保护与对外开放合作是我国地方政府行为的两个显著特征。本文通过一个简单的理论模型说明,晋升激励结构是决定中国地方政府在对内和对外行为选择差异的主要原因之一。在财政分权和地方政府竞争的条件下,中央政府以经济增长为核心的晋升锦标激励机制,导致地方政府实施地方保护和分割市场行为。而由于在对外合作中不存在晋升竞争的影响,使得地方政府积极开展对外经济合作。本文还进一步揭示了地方政府对内竞争与对外合作的动机、表现、后果,以及两种行为之间的内在联系,最后提出相关对策建议。     

Fiscal Federalism and Provincial Foreign Tax Policies in China

This paper employs province-level data between 1992 and 2000 to assess the impact of fiscal federalism and pro-internationalization industrial groups on provincial foreign tax efforts in China. It argues that part of the provincial variation in tax efforts on foreign investors is related to the level of fiscal autonomy, the strength of pro-internationalization industrial groups, and provincial economic conditions. The level of fiscal autonomy is found to be positively associated with provincial governments' tax efforts on foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs). Transfer-dependent provinces tend to have lower effective tax rates on FIEs than transfer-contributing provinces. The transfer systems designed to combat regional inequality and absorb regional shocks may undermine incentives for local governments to be fiscally responsible, potentially resulting in over-consumption. In addition, provinces that have strong pro-internationalization industrial groups or disadvantaged economic conditions tend to have lower effective tax rates on FIEs.     

Strategy for Fiscal Survival? Analysis of local extra-budgetary finance in China

Since the early 1980s, Chinese local governments have collected a significant amount of revenue outside the budgetary system. Fiscal shortage is commonly cited as the main reason for local extra-budgetary finance. However, a panel data analysis on provincial extra-budgetary practices reveals a different story. The findings suggest that extra-budgetary finance exists in China not as a strategy for local fiscal survival, but rather because local bureaucracies can conveniently exploit their administrative power to extract revenue from the local economy, and that extra-budgetary exactions fall disproportionately on peasants. Despite the constant calls by the central government to reform and regulate the extra-budgetary system, the centrally issued administrative directives have little impact on local practices.     

地方政府债务的效应及形成机制新探

地方政府债务是在我国社会主义市场经济体制改革进程中,伴随着计划经济体制向市场经济体制的转轨和政府职能的转换而产生的一种社会经济现象。地方政府债务包括地方政府从商业银行获得的贷款、中央政府将国债部分收入转贷给地方政府和地方政府为企业担保等形成的隐性债务等。地方政府债务的迅速膨胀已对社会经济发展产生了诸多负面影响。这种债务的形成和扩张既有显性的正式预算制度的制约,也有非正式预算制度、地方政府间财政竞争和地方政府债务动态发展机制等因素的拉动。     

The Limits of the Arbitrariness in Anticorruption by China’s Local Party Discipline Inspection Committees

Based on interviews in local commissions of China’s Party discipline inspection (CDIs), this article investigates the effectiveness, internal limits and selectiveness of CDIs in the anticorruption campaign. It uses a micro-level analysis to explore the role of law in affecting the CDIs’ anticorruption work and concludes that local CDIs remain heavily affected by the same-level local governments, but are effective in combating local corruption due to recent reforms that have strengthened higher-level CDIs’ control over lower-level CDIs. The current internal decision-making systems of the CDIs make their anticorruption work heavily dependent upon the central leadership. Their work is still not institutionalized and relies heavily on higher-level intervention. Nevertheless, law played a crucial role by providing the bottom lines to set the decision-making standards at different stages. Legal reforms should aim to further clarify and lift these baseline standards.     

从土地财政向公共财政的制度嬗变

分税制以来的财税体制决定了地方政府倚重土地财政的运行模式，推动了上一轮经济持续走高，但导致了土地资源的浪费和房地产泡沫，也存在着巨大的财政风险、金融风险，并不是一种科学发展的模式。应该按照公共财政的特质要求理清土地财政的制度调整思路：建立健全统一的、稳定的财政收入制度：调整优化财政的公共支出结构；建立健全科学化、法治化的财政管理体系；构建公开、民主的财政决策制度，以此促成土地财政向与社会主义市场经济发展相适应的公共财政体系的嬗变。     

财政立宪主义与“土地财政”治理

我国地方政府的"土地财政"引发了不少问题。财政立宪主义视野下,该现象是由央地财权划分不够合理,以及地方政府权力与当地居民权利不够平衡造成的。如果能够做到以宪法绝对统摄各类财税法律法规,则"土地财政"问题就可得到治理。     

我国经济执法的重心应当上移

经济执法的级别管辖问题既是经济法的实施问题,也是行政执法的程序问题,与中央政府和地方政府的事权划分问题直接相关。目前中国的经济执法以地方政府为主,其实施中遇到的最大问题是地方保护主义,要克服这一顽症,需要将经济执法的重心上移到比较高层级的政府——直至中央政府。这不仅与经济法管理事务的受益范围——属于全国性和跨省的事务相符合,也符合建立权力和责任高度统一的中央政府和地方政府的需要。     

Controlling Local Environmental Performance: an analysis of three national environmental management programs in the context of regional disparities in China

Whether government has the political will and capacity to control pollution is crucial for environmental outcomes. A vast country such as China, with centralized policymaking but idiosyncratic local implementation of environmental regulations and drastic regional disparities in wealth, raises the question of how does the central government stimulate local environmental commitment to accommodate such diversity? In exploring this issue, this paper compares three national environmental management programs that are used as influencing and bargaining tools between the central and local governments of China: Quantitative Examination of Comprehensive Control of Urban Environment (1989), Model City for Protecting the Environment (1997) and pilot Green Gross Domestic Product (2005). Although the introduction of these schemes represents an important step forward in addressing demanding environmental issues their impact is found to be mixed. However, each scheme also has something important to offer to this particular realm of environmental management and by recognizing and compiling their comparative advantages a number of policy implications for future local commitment towards and capacity for environmental protection can be provided.     

Agency and fiscal dependence in central‐provincial relations in China

The incremental decentralization of economic and fiscal authority within the Chinese state has led to a debate over the extent to which the central government retains authoritative control over the provinces. Using detailed budgetary data, this paper argues that even though fiscal reforms may have given provincial governments independent sources of income, they remain dependent upon the center for budgetary subsidies and that without central subsidies provincial government would face serious budgetary shortfalls. This is true not only for provinces that receive more in central subsidies than they transfer to the center, but also for provinces that were net exporters of funds to the center prior to the 1994 fiscal reforms. Fiscal dependence is important because it gives the center a source of leverage that supplements the political leverage it gains from the nomenklatura system, allowing it to not only punish insubordinate provincial leaders as individuals, but to also punish recalcitrant provincial governments as institutions by either cutting or withholding budgetary subsidies.     

Endorsing the Exodus: how local leaders backed peasant migrations in 1980s Sichuan

Discussions of migration in contemporary China often center on the distinctive institutions, especially household registration (hukou) regulations, which continue to limit the options of rural people in cities. This paper draws attention to how another part of the Chinese state has engaged migration: governments in communities of origin. Evidence from Sichuan in the 1980s reveals that local leaders authorized, facilitated, and even organized out-migration of villagers, at a time when Beijing gave scant indication of official approval of peasant migration. Local innovations to sanction migration built directly on the broader trend of rural cadres becoming increasingly responsive to local economic needs. The story of local government involvement in out-migration indicates that the relationship between migrants and the Chinese state has transformed fundamentally, even though formal institutions governing urban residence have changed minimally. As in other fields of social and economic life in China, authority over migration has fragmented.     

长三角一体化进程中地方政府行为选择——以江苏为例

随着我国对外开放政策的逐步深入,长江三角洲地区成为亚太地区最具活力的经济增长极和中国融入世界经济竞争的最具实力的中心区域。但是,沪、苏、浙等地方政府行为的选择与长三角区域经济一体化的战略目标是相矛盾的。文章基于区域经济发展的视角,分析了空间统筹布局、基础设施建设、跨区域的环境综合整治、土地资源协调和产业发展协调对地方政府积极融入长三角一体化协调发展进程的作用机制和影响,并在此基础上以江苏省为例提出了地方政府所应该选择的正确行为。