超越税务:乌海联合办税对中国"府际关系"发展的启示

"府际关系"是政府过程研究中一个非常重要的领域.内蒙古乌海市在实践中探索出的国、地税联合办税模式,虽然只是发生在一个地方,仅涉及国税、地税两个部门的制度创新,但其在理论探索上的贡献,已经超越了税务行政本身的变革.乌海联合办税模式在构建"伙伴型府际关系"方面的主动探索,从纵横两个维度上,不仅为在实践中逐步化解条块矛盾,构建新型的横向"府际关系"和调整政府横向间的职能配置等提供了新的思路,同时也为在理论上深化中国的"府际关系"理论研究提供了一个新的方向.     

From parliamentary pay to party funding: The acceptability of informal institutions in advanced democracies

While direct state funding of political parties has been a prominent theme in cross‐national research over the last decade, we still know little about party strategies to access state resources that are not explicitly earmarked for partisan usage. This article looks at one widespread but often overlooked informal party practice: the ‘taxing’ of MP salaries – that is, the regular transfer of fixed salary shares to party coffers. Building on notions of informal institutions developed in work on new democracies, the theoretical approach specifies factors that shape the acceptability of this legally non‐enforceable intra‐organisational practice. It is tested through a selection model applied to a unique dataset covering 124 parties across 19 advanced democracies. Controlling for a range of party‐ and institutional‐level variables, it is found that the presence of a taxing rule and the collection of demanding tax shares are more common in leftist parties (high internal acceptability) and in systems in which the penetration of state institutions by political parties is intense (high external acceptability).     

THE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT STRATEGY OF THE VICTORIAN COALITION GOVERNMENT

Abstract: This article reviews the budget sector financial management strategy of the Victorian Coalition government in the crucial period from its election in October 1992 up to the 1993–94 budget. The twin goals set by the Coalition were the elimination of the current account deficit, and the reduction of debt levels. Given infrastructure pressures, the debt reduction goal will be a difficult one to achieve. More precisely, it will be a difficult one to achieve without relying upon instruments such as assets sales, which the Coalition has viewed as artificial debt reduction techniques. The capital expenditure plans embodied in the 1993–94 state budget were not consistent with the debt reduction plans specified only months earlier by the Coalition. Victoria's debt levels are quite moderate even by OECD standards. What makes debt levels a real issue for the state is the narrowness of the tax bases of the Australian states, and the fact that Victoria is taxing at something like its maximum levels (at least, without coordinated multi-state tax increases). It is argued that, if the states could be confident that their revenue positions would hold firm (concretely, that revenue and grants as a proportion of GSP would remain constant), the appropriate debt policy goal for Victoria would be stabilisation — rather than reduction — of its debt/GSP ratio. However, the foreshadowed trend reduction of real commonwealth grants, as part of the so-called national savings campaign, makes it appropriate for Victoria — given the circumstances in which it finds itself — to target the reduction of debt/GSP levels.     

瓦格纳定律之英国实证检验及其对中国公共财政建设的启示——新公共管理运动背景下的探索

新公共管理运动的兴起,从理论上看财政规模弱化不可避免。英国作为新公共管理运动的发源国之一,其行政管理改革充分贯穿和系统展现了新公共管理理念的精髓。以英国新公共管理运动以来(1979—2006)的财政数据为依据,对瓦格纳定律进行实证检验,具有显著的代表意义。根据英国财政数据的研究结果与新公共管理理念高度吻合,表明瓦格纳定律在英国的适应期已经结束。有理由认为,只要推行新公共管理运动,瓦格纳定律就难以得到支持。鉴于新公共管理运动的世界性,及其不断推进的必然性,应当重新审视瓦格纳定律的客观性。有鉴于此,中国应该顺应世界新公共管理运动的潮流,立足于中国现实和中国社会经济转型的发展趋势,本着服务型政府的内在要求,适时调整财政政策。     

The influence of federalism on fiscal policy making

Abstract. This article attempts to refine the statement that federal states face difficulties in fiscal policy making because of the territorial division of powers by comparing two federal countries, Canada and Germany. These two countries differ in terms of their type of federalism: Canada displaying a power-separation system and Germany corresponding to a power-sharing type. According to the authors, the territorial factor influences fiscal policy making through the distribution of taxing and spending powers as well as through patterns of intergovernmental relations. The use of fiscal policy instruments and the likely effects on conflict and cooperation in those two countries is discussed with empirical evidence. The authors come to the conclusion that federalism is indeed a constraint on fiscal policy making, but that the two types of power division face different obstacles and deal differently with fiscal problems. In the power-separation system of Canada, the federal government has encompassing competencies to use fiscal policy instruments unilaterally and without restraint, but faces a lack of concerted action with the provinces which reduces its scope of action in fiscal policy making. In the power-sharing system in Germany, concerted action facilitates macroeconomic stabilisation strategies but the compulsory negotiation system distorts the use of fiscal policy instruments by distributive bargaining.     

Schoolhouses,courthouses, and statehouses after Serrano

The constitutionality of public school finance systems has been challenged in 43 states in the 25 years since the landmark Serrano decision. Using data on revenues from more than 16,000 school districts over the 1972-1992 period, this article assesses the impact of court-mandated reform on the role of the states in school finance. We find that resources from the state increased while revenues from local districts were roughly unchanged after successful litigation. States also followed a more aggressive redistribution policy in the aftermath of court-mandated reform; after successful litigation, state aid to the poorest districts increased and aid to the wealthiest districts remained unchanged. Finally, we find that reforms that were initiated by the states without judicial prodding were typically ineffective.     

Turning Up the Heat: The Impact of Electric Utility Competition on K–12 Education Funding in Ohio

Ohio, like many states, is currently-considering deregulation of the retail electric power industry. This issue is made more complex in Ohio because structural change in the delivery of electric power is also likely to have a negative effect on state and local government revenues. This effect occurs because of three main forces: the elimination of differential property tax treatment of utilities relative to general businesses, the likely decrease in state electricity excise tax revenues as a result of falling power prices and administrative difficulty in taxing out of state providers, and the potential for stranded costs to diminish the taxable value of electric generating equipment. This article provides an overview of these issues and a brief analysis of the extent to which these problems will be shared by other states. The article then demonstrates the impact of deregulation-induced tax changes on both state and local school district revenues in Ohio and concludes with a discussion of how the state's ability to insulate local governments from these adverse fiscal effects is made both more imperative and more difficult by a recent Supreme Court Ruling on school funding Finally, the issues discussed in the article are placed in a more general context of the challenges of adjusting tax policy to changing circumstances     

The politics of external approval: Explaining the IMF's evaluation of austerity programmes

During the European debt crisis, numerous states launched austerity programmes. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) evaluates and forecasts the likelihood of member states’ success in implementing these programmes. Although IMF evaluations influence country risk perceptions on capital markets, little is known about their reasoning. This article uses fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore on what grounds the IMF evaluated the success prospects of austerity programmes during the European debt crisis. Results reveal that IMF evaluations are heavily influenced by the programme's implementation credibility. They require a tractable policy problem, a country's institutional capacity to structure implementation, and favour expenditure reduction over revenue measures. By acting as a strict guide on the road to fiscal adjustment, the IMF indirectly influences member states’ scope of policy making through its surveillance activities. Extensive austerity programmes that need to be implemented swiftly are evaluated negatively if the country is not involved in an IMF programme.     

Max Weber in the tropics: How global climate politics facilitates the bureaucratization of forestry in Indonesia

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is one of the most advanced global climate governance arrangements and we show that it contributes to the buildup of autonomous capacities and reliable procedures in areas of rather limited statehood. These partially unintended effects can be conceptualized as an increasing rational–legal bureaucratization, which has been initiated through both external and domestic actors as we illuminate in the case of Indonesia's forestry sector in the period from 2007 until 2017. Our finding is that a bureaucratization of a new kind is increasingly strengthened in Indonesia's forest despite enduring patterns of neopatrimonialism, emerging signs of new public management approaches, and the strengthening of functional equivalents such as community-based forest management. We thus claim that Max Weber's perspective on the prospects and problems of rational–legal bureaucratization is still valuable, even when travelling to the tropics.     

Fiscal Capacity and Tax Effort of the American States: Trends and Issues

The author examines the historic context of state taxing power and fiscal capacity, and the current efforts of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to measure fiscal capacity and tax effort using a Representative Tax System (RTS). The two most commonly used methods of distributing federal aid to states are population and personal income, both incomplete measures of fiscal capacity. RTS estimates how much revenue each state and its localities would raise if it levied the national average tax rate for commonly used state and local taxes. The author considers the strengths and weakness of RTS as a measure of fiscal capacity and examines state rankings and trends since 1975.     

Wealth-Transfer Taxes in U.S. Fiscal Federalism: A Levy Still in Need of Reform

Wealth-transfer taxes are federal and state levies on the valueof estates, inheritances, and gifts. Because the federal governmentallows a limited tax credit, repeal of the federal tax has implicationsfor state governments. This article discusses the economic justificationof taxing wealth transfers and provides data on the importanceof the tax from 1977 to 1997. We measure the degree of variationin the use of the tax among the states and pinpoint those statesfor which death taxation is most important. Wealth-transfertaxation needs reform but, repeal of the federal tax is inappropriate.Instead, the state levies should be abandoned. We conclude byproposing to repeal the state taxes and reduce the federal taxby an amount equivalent to the value of the federal tax-credit.The resulting revenues, however, would not to be garnered bythe federal government but returned as revenue-sharing fundsto the resident state of the decedent.     

Bankruptcy During Foreclosure: Home Preservation Through Chapters 7 and 13

Filing for bankruptcy is the primary legal mechanism by which homeowners in foreclosure can exert control over ownership of their home, yet little is known about the interplay among bankruptcy types, mortgage servicers, state foreclosure laws, and home foreclosure auctions. We analyze 4,280 lower-income homeowners in the United States who were more than 90 days late paying their 30-year fixed-rate mortgages. Two dozen organizations serviced these mortgages and initiated foreclosure between 2003 and 2012. We identify wide variation between mortgage servicers in their likelihood of bringing a property to auction. We also show that when homeowners in foreclosure filed for bankruptcy, foreclosure auctions were 70% less likely. Chapters 7 and 13 filings both reduce the hazard of auction, but the effect is 5 times greater for Chapter 13, which contains enhanced tools to preserve homeownership. Bankruptcy's effects are strongest in states that permit power-of-sale foreclosure or withdraw homeowners' right-of-redemption at the time of auction.     

Leviathan in a dual economy

This paper studies the policies of a leviathan state with an ambition to make money and to stay in power. The economic framework is a developing country characterized by dual markets. Government revenue is raised by taxing the agricultural sector. Part of this revenue is offered to the politically influential urban population in the form of low productive but well paid public sector employment. I calculate the optimal level of rural taxation from the point of view of the Leviathan and investigate its effects on migration, industrialization, public sector employment and urban unemployment in different political scenarios.     

The Federal Role in State Fiscal Stress

This article examines the extent to which the federal government'spolicies were responsible for the fiscal stress experiencedby most state governments in the early 1990s. Federal policieshave contributed considerably to recent state fiscal stress,particularly through the Medicaid program—the fastestgrowing part of state budgets—and the recession, whichdepressed revenue and increased welfare and Medicaid spending.Federal aid reductions have not been an important source ofrecent state fiscal stress. The real value of per capita federalaid other than for welfare programs fell considerably in the1980s, but the reductions were much greater for local governmentsthan for states. The largest reductions were in the early 1980s.Federal policies have affected state finances in several otherways—through tax policy, unfunded mandates, and the federalfailure to cope effectively with problems like health and poverty.Federal court rulings have also caused budget problems (as havestate court decisions). In some respects, state fiscal problemsare not a federal responsibility. Rising school enrollments,new corrections policies, and inelastic tax systems have createdfiscal stress for many states. Excessive state spending in the1980s has contributed to recent fiscal problems in some states,but not generally.     

Contested multilateralism 2.0 and regional order transition: causes and implications

This article proposes a new concept of ‘contested multilateralism 2.0’ to describe the puzzling institutional building efforts by non-ASEAN members after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) in the Asia-Pacific. It suggests that different to ‘multilateralism 1.0’ of the 1990s, which was mainly led by ASEAN, this wave of multilateralism has been initiated by other powers, such as the United States, China, Japan, Australia and South Korea, either by forming new institutions or by reinvigorating existing ones. This article advances an institutional balancing argument. It suggests that ‘contested multilateralism 2.0’ is a result of institutional balancing among major states under the conditions of high strategic uncertainty and high economic interdependence after the GFC. One unintended consequence may be that it could well lead to a more peaceful transformation of the regional order in the Asia-Pacific if regional security hotspots, such as the Korean crisis and the South China Sea dispute, can be managed appropriately.     

Terrorism,Dynamic Commitment Problems,and Military Conflict

Since 9/11, several states have initiated military conflicts in the name of fighting terrorism. However, studies indicate that the costs of terrorism are insignificant compared to the damage created by war. This raises the question: Why do states initiate costly wars when the risk posed by terrorism appears marginal? This study presents two explanations. First, we argue that while terrorists frequently fail to achieve their strategic objectives, terrorists can accomplish tactical objectives and may transition to insurgencies by seizing control of pockets of territory. States may respond by initiating preventive wars to stop terrorists from consolidating control over their strategically valuable territories (e.g., resource‐rich areas). Second, rival states may opportunistically exploit terrorist violence by declaring that the government is a “weak state.” This allows rivals to seize portions of the government's territory under the cover of fighting terror. We test these hypotheses using post–Cold War African dyads from 1990 to 2006.     

Determinants of the probability and timing of commercial casino legalization in the United States

The adoption of lotteries by state governments has received significant attention in the economics literature, but the issue of casino adoption has been neglected by researchers. Casino gambling is a relatively new industry in the United States, outside Nevada and New Jersey. As of 2007, 11 states had established commercial casinos; several more states are considering legalization. We analyze the factors that determine a state’s decision to legalize commercial casinos, using data from 1985 to 2000, a period which covers the majority of states that have adopted commercial casinos. We use a tobit model to examine states’ fiscal conditions, political alignments, intrastate and interstate competitive environments, and demographic characteristics, which yields information on the probability and timing of adoptions. The results suggest a public choice explanation that casino legalization is due to state fiscal stress, to efforts to keep gambling revenues (and the concomitant gambling taxes) within the state, and to attract tourism or “export taxes.”     

Do State Affordable Housing Appeals Systems Backfire? A Natural Experiment

Several U.S. states have supplemented traditional judicial review of local land-use regulation with a state affordable housing appeals system (SAHAS). Empirical evidence indicates that a SAHAS can increase the proportion of housing that is affordable to low- and moderate-income households. But some scholars have suggested that an effective SAHAS will ultimately backfire, by producing incentives to prohibit market-rate development, thereby rendering a state’s housing stock less affordable overall. We test this “backfire” hypothesis with a longitudinal comparison of single-family housing development from 1980 through 2007 in municipalities located in adjacent areas of Connecticut (which adopted a SAHAS in 1989) and New York State (which did not have a SAHAS during the study period). Contrary to the predictions of the backfire hypothesis, our fixed effects regression indicates that Connecticut's SAHAS was associated with increased single-family development relative to the New York State jurisdictions in our sample. This result suggests that a SAHAS can increase below-market rate and mixed-income development without impeding market-rate development.     

Nationalism and Intellectuals in Nations without States: the Catalan Case

This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for the study of the relationship between intellectuals and nationalism in Western nations without states. The first part sets up a theoretical framework which includes a definition of the concepts of nation, state and nationalism and also introduces the concept of nations without states. It then establishes a distinction between 'state nationalism' and nationalism in 'nations without states'. The second part analyses the relationship between intellectuals and nationalism in the work of Elie Kedourie, Tom Nairn, John Breuilly and Anthony D. Smith. The third part considers the specific context within which intellectuals operate in nations without states. It concentrates on the study of the role of Catalan intellectuals in protecting their vernacular language and culture during Franco's regime (1939–75) together with the processes which, in the 1960s and 1970s, turned Catalan nationalism from an elite into a mass movement. Particular attention is given to the cultural resistance activities carried out by Catalan intellectuals during this period, the reasons why some intellectuals may feel attracted to nationalism, and the rational and emotional arguments employed by intellectuals as mobilizing agents.     

THE STATES' ROLE IN HEALTH CARE COST CONTAINMENT*

Under the Social Security Act of 1935, the federal government expanded its involvement in maternal and child health care programs through grants-in-aid to state and local health departments. The Medicaid legislation of 1965 vastly enlarged federal expenditures, and state responsibilities. State performance was frequently criticized, especially in health care cost containment. Recently, the states have initiated several efforts to link cost containment and the quality of health care.