| The issue of agriculture,countryside and farmers is a fundamental issue related to the national economy and the people's livelihood.Since 2004.the "No.1 of Central Document" has continued to focus on the issue of agriculture,the countryside and farmers,which has been made to promote Rural Tax-for-Fee Reform,New Rural Construction,Agricultural Supply-Side Structural Reform,therefore the fiscal support for agriculture has been continuously increased,which has protected our country's food security,and promoted the development of agriculture and countryside.However,the contradiction between the insufficient supply of local government's own fiscal resources and the precipitation of a large amount of financial funds is quite common,the problem of inefficient allocation of fiscal funds is particularly prominent in the agricultural field.In order to optimize the allocation of financial agriculture-related funds and concentrate limited resources to complete various tasks for poverty alleviation,the central government launched to support poor counties to carry out pilot projects for the coordinated and integrated use of fiscal funds related to agriculture in 2016,and decentralized the approval authority for central fiscal agricultural funds projects that were included in the overall integration.It was issued through the original channel,but the approval authority for fund projects was completely delegated to the poor counties,and they were autonomously implemented in accordance with the principle of matching power and responsibility.The integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties is a major innovation in the adjustment of intergovernmental fiscal relations and the reform of local budget management systems under the framework of the existing fiscal system.In view of this,the paper tries to construct a transmission mechanism for the effect of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture from the perspective of fiscal decentralization,objectively evaluates the effect of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties,and proposes policy recommendations for further coordinating and integrating fiscal funds related to agriculture in order to accelerate the establishment of a modern fiscal system,and provide a basis for decision-making to achieve an orderly connection between poverty alleviation and relative poverty alleviation.Theoretically,the channels for the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture mainly include the vertical integration between the central and local governments at all levels and the horizontal integration between all levels of government departments.This is determined by the budget management system,especially the characteristics of fiscal decentralization.The integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture involves organization of the decision-making,the examining and approving,the implementation,and the supervision and evaluation.According to the theory of public products,fiscal decentralization.and public budgets,the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture can deepen the reform of the budget management system,promote the establishment of a modern fiscal system.and promote the structural reform of the agricultural supply-side.improve the quality of agricultural supply and increasing farmers' income.Focusing on agricultural output and farmers' income,the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture can produce effects of increasing agricultural output through the rational division of powers and responsibilities between governments,the coordination and adaptation of fiscal resources,the division of responsibilities between departments,and the overall integration of budget management powers to increase production,and can produce effects of increasing farmers' income through indirect channels of purchasing expenditures and direct channels of transferable expenditures.From the perspective of policy changes,the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture has gradually shifted from local independent exploration to regional advancement since 2013.The analysis of the overall situation of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture found that:the overall scale of fiscal funds related to agriculture is large and maintains growth,but its rapid growth is difficult to sustain;the local government's dependence on central transfer payments in the agricultural field is relatively higher,which also means that the degree of fiscal decentralization is relatively low.Further through the case analysis of two different types of poor counties in Hunan Province and Anhui Province,it was found that the projects of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties are mainly focused on infrastructure construction,agricultural production or industrial development,and the scale of infrastructure construction projects greatly improved by more than 60%in 2019,and the scale of agricultural production and industrial development projects is relatively insufficient The funds for rural industrial development projects in Dongkou County in Hunan Province even declined by 36.65%in 2019.In terms of project selection basis and performance evaluation of integrated funds,the management system of poverty alleviation project library has been established,and performance goals have been compiled,but there are problems such as excessive funding gap of project library and incomplete performance management chain.In order to empirically analyze the impact of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties on agricultural output and farmers' income,the DID model was constructed based on the panel data of 229 counties in four provinces in Central China from 2013 to 2018.The study found that:the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties can significantly increase the level of agricultural output,that was an "increasing production effect",the growth rate of per capita agricultural output value in the poor counties can be increased by 1.47 percentage points compared with the non-poor counties.There are obvious and significant differences of the "increasing production effect" in different categories of poor counties,which is that national-key poverty alleviation counties is the highest,up to 2.55 percentage points,followed by counties in particularly poor areas,reaching 1.22 percentage points,and the provincial-key poverty alleviation counties are the lowest,but the "increasing production effect"of the provincial key poverty alleviation counties still reached 1.04 percentage points;the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties failed to directly promote the growth of farmers' income,that meant the direct effect of increasing income is not significant.Further introducing an intermediary effect model to test the transmission mechanism of the allocation effect of fiscal funds related to agriculture,the study found that:the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties failed to significantly promote the growth of farmers'income through agricultural development,and the industrial basis for increasing farmers' income is still not strong;the growth of intergovernmental transfer payment and the fiscal expenditure to agriculture are manifested as a masking effect rather than a mediating effect.The "increasing production effect" is masked 5.5%by the growth of intergovernmental transfer payments,and the "increasing income effect" was masked 71.1 8%by the growth of fiscal expenditure to agriculture.Therefore,it is more desirable to optimize the transfer payment structure and improve the performance of agricultural investment under a moderate scale.Finally,it puts forward policy suggestions to promote the effective integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture,including:at the level of the central government,it is necessary to speed up the rational division of fiscal authority and expenditure responsibilities in agricultural-related fields,deepen the reform of the central transfer payment system by the central government,and promote the substantial integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture;at the local government level,it is necessary to promote the division of labor and coordination of local agricultural departments,deepen the reform of the budget management system of local governments at all levels,and support the high-quality and integrated development of rural primary,secondary,and tertiary industries;at the level of supporting policies,it is necessary to improve the level of legalization of fiscal governance by accelerating the legislative process of fiscal transfer payments and budget performance management.The innovations of the article are mainly reflected in:(1)Try to construct a transmission mechanism for the effect of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture from the perspective of fiscal decentralization,and empirically test through an intermediary effect model.Firstly,starting from the budget management system,especially the characteristics of fiscal decentralization,try to construct a two-way transmission mechanism for the effect of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture,that is,the vertical transmission mechanism between the central and local governments at all levels,and the horizontal transmission between all levels of government departments.The two-way transmission mechanism can produce "increasing production effect"through the rational division of powers and responsibilities between governments and the coordination and adaptation of fiscal resources.the division of responsibilities between departments and the overall planning and integration of budget management powers,and produce "increasing income effect" through indirect channels of purchase expenditure and direct channels of transfer expenditure.Secondly,the intermediary effect model is introduced to verify the transmission mechanism of the effect of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture from intergovernmental transfer payments and local fiscal expenditures on agriculture.The study found that the growth of intergovernmental transfer payments and local fiscal expenditures on agriculture is a masking effect rather than a mediating effect.(2)Use the DID quasi-natural experiment method to objectively evaluate the effect of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties.The integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties is the first major reform of funds related to agriculture directly promoted by the central government in our country.It is of great significance for accelerating the reform of the fiscal and taxation system and promoting the structural reform of the agricultural supply-side.However,empirical research,especially causal inference research,is rarely involved in the existing literature.Based on the review of the policies of poor counties and the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties,the paper selected 1374 observation samples in 229 counties,including 129 poor counties and 100 non-poor counties,from the four central provinces of the main grain producing areas,through the DID quasi-natural experiment method,it is found that the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in poor counties has a significant effect of increasing production,but the direct effect of increasing income is not significant.(3)It is found that the heterogeneity of the "increasing production effect" of the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture in particularly poor counties.According to the classification test of the sample poor counties of the treatment group,it is found that the "increasing production effect" of different types of poor counties in the integration of fiscal funds related to agriculture are significantly different.The "increasing production effect" in particularly poor counties are lower than the national-key poor counties,but is significantly higher in provincial-key poor counties.Taking into account factors such as agricultural production costs in particularly poor counties,the conclusion is more positive and it has strong policies meaning especially for promoting the development of rural industries in deeply poor areas in the future and improving relative poverty. |
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