| The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China points out that "China’s economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development",and high-quality economic development has become the main theme of China’s economic development in the new era.The improvement of the quality of economic development is inseparable from the guarantee of the national system.Through the adjustment and improvement of corresponding systems,government departments can continuously influence the behavioral decisions of various economic entities and the optimal boundary of the production curve,which in turn affects the quality of economic development.As the top-level design of the country,the fiscal decentralization system is an important institutional tool and pillar for government departments to govern and develop the economy.It has unique advantages in the process of improving the quality of economic development.Fiscal decentralization embodies the division of revenue arrangements and expenditure responsibilities between the central and local governments,and its core is the incentive system that combines economic decentralization and political centralization.Due to the information asymmetry between the central and local governments,the central government may have problems such as lag and insufficient supply in the process of leading the local economic development and construction,which cannot better meet the needs of regional economic development and construction.After economic decentralization,local governments have a certain degree of economic autonomy,and can formulate relevant fiscal policies and provide public products and services according to the location advantages,industrial structure,and development needs of their jurisdictions,thereby improving the efficiency of government operations.At the same time,under the fiscal decentralization,the discretionary power of local governments has increased,which leads to the flexibility and efficiency of local governments to use public resources to guide the flow and distribution of economic resources,stimulates the optimization of local government’s fiscal expenditure structure,and ultimately affects the quality of economic development.Throughout the reform of the tax-sharing system,the fiscal decentralization system has been continuously adjusted and reformed to meet the needs of economic development and guide the rational allocation and balanced development of economic and social resources.At present,China has entered a stage of high-quality development,how to further improve the fiscal decentralization system to help improve the quality of economic development has become an important topic at this stage.Therefore,how to scientifically judge the relationship between fiscal decentralization and the quality of economic development,obtain the dividends of the fiscal decentralization system,and give play to the advantages of fiscal decentralization,has important theoretical and practical significance for promoting the quality of economic development.In view of this,this article focuses on the core research question of "whether China’s fiscal decentralization promotes the quality of economic development",through the interpretation of the mechanism to clarify the relationship between fiscal decentralization and the quality of economic development,through the measurement and empirical observations to grasp the trend and evolution characteristics of the current fiscal decentralization and the quality of economic development,through empirical testing to explore the direct effect and transmission effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development.The specific arrangement of this article is as follows:The first chapter is the introduction.Including the introduction of research background and significance,research ideas and methods,the main content and technical route,the innovations and deficiencies of this article.The second chapter is the literature review.This part first sorts out the related literature on fiscal decentralization,mainly including the connotation of fiscal decentralization and the measurement of fiscal decentralization.Secondly,it sorts out the relevant literature on the quality of economic development,which mainly includes the connotation of the quality of economic development,the construction and measurement of indicators of the quality of economic development.Thirdly,the relevant literature on the relationship between fiscal decentralization and the quality of economic development is combed,mainly including fiscal decentralization and economic development,fiscal decentralization and optimal allocation of resources,fiscal decentralization and factor distortion.Finally,through the literature review,we find the deficiencies in the existing research and improve them.The third chapter is the theoretical basis and mechanism.Firstly,this article reviews the related theories of fiscal decentralization and economic development to provide theoretical support for subsequent research.Secondly,relying on the connotation of the quality of economic development,this article discusses the direct effects of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development from six aspects: efficiency improvement,structural optimization,economic stability,kinetic energy cultivation,green environmental protection and improvement of people’s livelihood.Finally,this article discusses the conduction effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development from the optimal allocation of resources and factor distortion effects caused by local government actions.The fourth chapter is the measurement and empirical observation of fiscal decentralization and the quality of economic development.Firstly,this article measures the fiscal decentralization and the quality of economic development.From the two aspects of income and expenditure,this article selects the local fiscal revenue autonomy rate,the proportion of local fiscal revenue,the self-determination rate of local fiscal expenditure,and the proportion of local fiscal expenditure to measure fiscal decentralization;from the perspective of efficiency improvement,structural optimization,economic stability,kinetic energy cultivation,green and environmental protection,and improvement of people’s livelihood,this article constructs a quality indicator system for economic development and measure it with the coefficient of variation method.Secondly,empirical observations are made on the measurement results,including observations on change trends and estimation of nuclear density.Finally,through fitting observations,this article finds that in addition to the self-determination rate of local fiscal expenditure,the autonomy rate of local fiscal revenue,the proportion of local fiscal revenue and the proportion of local fiscal expenditure all have a positive correlation with the quality of economic development.The fifth chapter is the direct effect test part of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development.Firstly,this article uses panel data of 30 provinces(municipalities and autonomous regions)in China from 2007 to 2019,constructs a dynamic panel model,and uses the two-stage system GMM for benchmark regression estimation and cause analysis.Secondly,the robustness test is carried out by replacing the explained variable,replacing the model estimation method and dealing with endogenous problems.Thirdly,this article analyzes the heterogeneity from structural heterogeneity,regional heterogeneity and temporal heterogeneity.Finally,an extended analysis is carried out to conduct a nonlinear investigation on the effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development.The sixth chapter is the conduction effect test part of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development.Firstly,the recursive effect model is constructed to test the transmission effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development.Secondly,this article makes an empirical test from the conduction path of resource optimal allocation effect and factor distortion effect.It includes the resource allocation effect measured by science and technology investment,environmental investment and FDI,and the factor distortion effect measured by capacity utilization,market segmentation,investment preference and public expenditure structure bias.Finally,the method of replacing the explained variable is used to test the robustness.The seventh chapter is the conclusion and policy recommendations.Firstly,this article summarizes the full text and draw conclusions,including the mechanism of fiscal decentralization affecting the quality of economic development,the measurement and empirical observation of fiscal decentralization and economic development quality,the direct effect and conduction effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development.Secondly,according to the conclusions,this article puts forward relevant policy suggestions,including policy recommendations from the direct effect test(improving the top-level design of fiscal decentralization,setting the intensity of fiscal decentralization according to local conditions)and policy recommendations from the conduction effect test(science and technology investment,environmental investment,foreign direct investment,capacity utilization,market segmentation,investment preferences,public expenditure structure).Finally,the research outlook is proposed.The innovations of this article mainly reflect the following aspects:First,in terms of research perspective,different from the perspectives of existing research from financial development,fiscal expenditure,tax incentives,and human capital,this article takes China’s fiscal decentralization system as an entry point to examine whether the fiscal decentralization system promotes the improvement of the quality of economic development.Second,in terms of the mechanism,this article sorts out the direct and conduction effects of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development.When sorting out the direct effects,we start from the six dimensions that constitute the quality of economic development,making the analysis of the mechanism of action more realistic.While sorting out the conduction effect,this article explores the conduction effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development from the optimal allocation of resources and factor distortion effects caused by local government behavior,so that the mechanism analysis is more realistic.Third,in the empirical test,this article uses a combination of empirical tests to demonstrate the research question of whether China’s fiscal decentralization promotes the improvement of the quality of economic development.Specifically,this article constructs a dynamic panel model to test the direct effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development,and constructs a recursive effect model to test the conduction effect of fiscal decentralization on the quality of economic development. |
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