How Does the Fiscal Transfer Affect the Local Government Debt?
ZHONG Huiyong, LU Ming
School of Finance, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics; Antai College of Economics & Management , Shanghai Jiaotong University / School of Economics, Fudan University
Abstract:
China's local government debt stock is immense and still growing rapidly, which brings risks to China's fiscal sustainability and long term economic growth. From the lens of Urban Construction Investment Bonds (UCIB) issued by Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFVs), this paper studies how the fiscal transfer impacts the issuance of UCIB under the context of China's unitary system. After using instrumental variable, our findings indicate that special fiscal transfer per capita is positively associated with the issuance of UCIB; whereas, non-special fiscal transfer (including tax rebate and general fiscal transfer) has nothing to do with the issuance of UCIB. Geographically, the effect of special fiscal transfer on the issuance of UCIB mainly exists in the inland cities instead of the coastal ones. A further study on these effects finds that there is a sharp rise in the phenomenon of paying off the debt stock by issuing more UCIB.
钟辉勇, 陆铭. 财政转移支付如何影响了地方政府债务？[J]. 金融研究, 2015, 423(9): 1-16.
ZHONG Huiyong, LU Ming. How Does the Fiscal Transfer Affect the Local Government Debt?. Journal of Financial Research, 2015, 423(9): 1-16.
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