Research On Deviation And Governance Of Chinese Local Government’s Budget And Final Accounts From The Perspective Of Budget Supervision

As the core of finance,budget reflects the scope,direction and policies of government activities,and reflects the supervision of the organs of state power and the people over government activities.Government budget capacity represents the ability of a country to absorb and use financial resources,which is mainly reflected in whether the basic functions and objectives of public budget can be realized through total amount control,resource allocation and management efficiency.It affects the modernization process of national governance system and governance capacity.Among them,the total amount control involves the whole process of the government from budget preparation to the completion of the final accounts,aiming at the compulsory public comparison between the budget and the final accounts,reflecting the effectiveness of budget constraints and the realization of budget objectives,which is of great significance to accelerate the establishment of a modern budget system.Since the global financial crisis broke out in 2008,it has been a great test for the ability of governments around the world to regulate and control the economy.As an important means of macro-control,finance plays an important role.In order to cope with the economic crisis,local governments have taken various measures to raise financial funds regardless of the cost of the economy,such as the overflowing of government investment and financing platforms,excessive reliance on land finance,huge debt investment,repeated construction,etc.,constantly break through the existing budget constraints,resulting in high deviation between government budget and final accounts.After the economic crisis,such deviation is still more prominent,seriously damaging the credibility and authority of fiscal budget,and endangering the sustainable development ability of local government finance.Since the 18th CPC National Congress,the CPC Central Committee has attached great importance to fiscal and economic work and adopted a series of measures to deepen fiscal and budgetary reform,aiming to standardize government budgetary behavior and strengthen the binding force of the budget.The report to the 19th National Congress of the CPC clearly stated that we need to establish a modern budget system that is comprehensive,standardized,transparent,based on scientific standards and with strong constraints.However,as rational economic man,local government has the motivation to pursue utility maximization(greater budget discretion),and lacks the intrinsic motivation to abide by budget constraints spontaneously.Therefore,the "strong constraint" budget system not only needs to strengthen the local government’s own budget consciousness,but more importantly,to build a strong budget supervision system.At present,although China has established a diversified financial budget supervision system involving legal system,people’s congress,audit,public and other fields,whether such a wide range of budget supervision system,as expected,the local government budget and final accounts deviation play a governance role? What is the governance mechanism? What kind of management feature does each have again?What can be strengthened? To clarify the governance mechanisms behind different supervision systems and identify the characteristics of the influence of different supervision systems on local government budget behavior is of great benefit to the construction of a comprehensive,whole-process,wide field and multi-dimensional budget supervision system and the improvement of local government budget governance ability.Based on this,this paper analyzes and summarizes the diversification of China’s budget supervision system under the new era,the budget management system,on the basis of the rule of law from the budget,the dimension of the National People’s Congress supervision,audit supervision and social supervision to the empirical evaluation of the system design of budget management effect,to explore China’s budget diversified governance mechanism and governance characteristics of the supervision system.This paper tries to answer the above questions in order to provide empirical evidence for establishing and perfecting the modern budget system with strong constraints.This paper follows the technical route of "institutional background(characteristic facts)—theoretical research(governance mechanism)— empirical research(effect evaluation)— countermeasures research(governance suggestions)",and comprehensively uses the research method of combining empirical analysis and normative analysis,mainly from the following four aspects:First,using the quasi-natural experiment of implementing the new Budget Law since 2015,based on the budget and final accounts data at the city and state level,the intensity DID model is constructed to empirically explore the governance effect of the rule of budget law on the deviation behavior of local governments’ budget and final accounts.From the perspective of budget preparation and budget implementation,it explains how the new budget Law affects the budget behavior of local governments.The empirical results show that the implementation of the new Budget Law helps reduce the deviation of local government revenue and expenditure budget and final accounts.The mechanism test shows that the new Budget Law reduces the deviation of revenue budget and final accounts by making revenue budget compilation more scientific.By promoting the timely release of expenditure budgets,the government was restrained from "sudden spending" at the end of the year,and the deviation of expenditure budgets and final accounts was reduced.The new Budget Law has no significant impact on the range of changes in expenditure budgets,the quality of expenditure budgets was not high when they were compiled at the beginning of the year,and there are still considerable adjustments in the actual implementation,which means that the guidance and normative role of the all-inclusive new Budget Law in expenditure budget compilation needs to be improved.Second,using the budget and final accounts data of provincial governments,this paper explores the governance effect of NPC supervision on deviation of local governments’ financial budgets and final accounts.The Constitution and law entrusts people’s Congresses at all levels and their standing committees with the responsibility of budget examination and oversight.Effective oversight by people’s congresses is crucial to the establishment of a modern budget system that is comprehensive,standardized and transparent,with scientific standards and strong constraints.This chapter quantifies the effect of NPC supervision by the total number of deputies’ opinions and suggestions,and expands and analyzes the supervisory roles of NPC special committees and NPC standing Committees.The results show that the NPC’s supervision reduces the deviation degree of local governments’ revenue and expenditure budgets and final accounts.Compared with budget execution,the influence of NPC supervision on the deviation of local government budget preparation is more obvious.The supervision of people’s congresses plays a significant role in governing the deviation from the controllable expenditure budget and final accounts of governments at the corresponding level,but it has no significant effect on revenue.The extended analysis found that the more weak the opinions of the NPC special committee budget review results,the stronger the motivation to strengthen the supervision of NPC deputies;The stronger the financial supervision of NPC Standing Committee is,the weaker the motivation is to reduce the deviation of local government’s budget and final accounts through the number of suggestions put forward by NPC deputies.In addition,modern information technology is used to improve the NPC budget examination and supervision system,and the NPC budget online supervision system has become an effective alternative means to strengthen the NPC supervision.Third,taking provincial level local government as the research object,this paper provides empirical evidence of the governance impact of national audit on the deviation of local government’s income and expenditure budget and final accounts and conducts relevant robustness tests.Theoretically,the system improvement effect of auditing suggestion adopted,the behavior correction effect of auditing rectification,and the deterrent effect of auditing accountability can correct the deviation of local government budget and final accounts.This paper examines the effect of system improvement,behavior correction and deterrence,as well as the effect of system design on building supervisory synergy with the power organs of the National People’s Congress.The empirical results show that national audit significantly reduces the deviation of local government’s income and expenditure budget and final accounts;The adoption of audit suggestions and audit accountability have significantly reduced deviations from the budgets and final accounts of local government revenues,and the rectification and accountability of audit have significantly reduced deviations from the budgets and final accounts of local government expenditures.With the help of the oversight power of the NPC,auditing supervision is more effective in controlling deviations from local governments’ budgets and final accounts.In addition,through the extended analysis,it is found that the objective deviation caused by new debt and transfer payment income will weaken the governance role of audit supervision on the deviation of local government budget and final accounts.Fourth,as an important part of the national supervision system,social supervision is an important force for the country to promote the modernization of its national governance system and governance capacity.This paper empirically evaluates whether social supervision reduces the deviation of local government’s budget and final accounts from the perspective of budget disclosure by taking the revenue and expenditure of the general public budget at the provincial and provincial budget levels as the research sample.The paper further investigates the different effects of social supervision on local government’s budget preparation and budget implementation,the impact of news reporting on the correction effect of social supervision’s budget deviation,and whether social supervision can optimize the fiscal expenditure structure while reducing budget and final accounts deviation.The empirical results show that social supervision significantly reduces the deviation of local government income and expenditure budget and final accounts;The deviation degree of local government revenue budget and expenditure budget can be significantly reduced,and the correction effect of budget deviation mainly exists in expenditure budget.Further analysis shows that the governance effect of social supervision on reducing deviation of local government expenditure budget and final accounts increases with the increase of news media reports,and the correction effect on deviation of provincial budget and final accounts is mainly reflected in expenditure budget.In addition,social supervision not only corrects the deviation of local governments’ budgets and final accounts,but also promotes the rationalization and optimization of local governments’ financial expenditure structure.In this paper,the beneficial actions of fiscal budget management in the new era,such as the revision of the new Budget Law,improving the way of budget examination and supervision by the National People’s Congress,innovating the audit supervision mechanism,and promoting budget disclosure,are combined with empirical research to systematically explain the budget governance effects and characteristics of China’s diversified supervision system.It provides empirical evidence for further perfecting the budget supervision system and promoting the level of government budget management.This paper puts forward policy suggestions from the aspects of expanding the depth of law,enhancing the consciousness of NPC deputies to perform their duties,innovating and perfecting the audit supervision mechanism,and enhancing the effectiveness of social supervision,in order to provide reference for accelerating the establishment of a modern budget system with strong constraints.