The Impact Of Fiscal Transparency On The Efficiency Of Government Spending

In the report of the 19th National Congress,the party clearly proposed to"establish a comprehensive,standardized and transparent budget system with scientific standards and strong constraints,and fully implement performance management",and it was also mentioned in the report that the budget information of government finance should be both open and transparent,which is the key to reforming the budget system.The optimization and improvement of "efficiency" is the key to the overall management of performance.In May 2019,the "Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Government Information Disclosure" came into effect after a new revision,clearly putting forward the principle of"openness as the norm,non-disclosure as the exception",China’s financial information system,opened a brand new page.The important root and mark of modern financial system is to make financial information open and transparent,and in the general environment of pluralistic and collaborative governance,it prompts the majority of citizens to participate in governance with passion and confidence,and makes the government accept the supervision of the public,which makes the government’s governance level improved,and the efficiency of the use of government financial funds will also be improved as a whole.However,according to the China Fiscal Transparency Report released by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics one after another in recent years,it is easy to find that the overall fiscal transparency of China’s provinces is at a low level.2016 provincial fiscal transparency is 53.49%,which has reached the highest level since 2007,that is,the average level of provincial fiscal transparency is 53.49%at the highest,which means that the government Only half of the information on fiscal expenditures is open and transparent,and about half of the fiscal information is not disclosed.As China enters the economic transition period,many local governments will face the contradiction between low growth of fiscal revenue and rigid growth of fiscal expenditure,and it is important to improve the efficiency of government expenditure and maximize the use of limited fiscal resources.Accordingly,this paper takes fiscal transparency as an entry point to study how fiscal transparency affects government spending efficiency,and proposes corresponding suggestions and countermeasures based on the empirical findings.Based on theoretical analysis and combined with empirical analysis,this paper investigates how fiscal transparency affects the efficiency of government spending.The main contents include.First,a theoretical analysis of how fiscal transparency affects the internal and external mechanisms of government spending efficiency is conducted.Based on the theoretical analysis,the research hypothesis of this paper is proposed.Under certain other conditions,the improvement of fiscal transparency will positively affect the efficiency of government spending in China;secondly,two hypotheses are further proposed based on the literature,namely,the hypothesis that the misuse of funds and the structure of spending have mediating effects in the relationship between fiscal transparency and government spending efficiency;finally,the hypothesis of moderating effects is proposed,namely,the hypothesis that media monitoring,citizen monitoring,and financial resource endowment have a significant impact on the relationship between fiscal Finally,the hypothesis of moderating effect is proposed,that is,media monitoring,citizen monitoring and financial resource endowment have positive moderating effects on the relationship between fiscal transparency and government expenditure efficiency.Second,this paper uses the DEA method to measure the efficiency of government spending in four major regions in China.According to the literature reading and collation as well as comprehensive social reality,for the selection of output item indicators,the main aspects of government fiscal expenditure should generally be selected,mainly including specific items such as economic construction,agricultural development,development of education level,social security,social welfare,transportation development,infrastructure development,and employment status.In this paper,the construction level of agricultural development is chosen to represent the total power of agricultural machinery per capita,the economic development level of each province is chosen to represent the GDP per capita,the health care construction level is represented by the number of beds per 10,000 people,the transportation infrastructure development level is represented by the traffic density,the employment status is represented by the employment rate,and the compulsory education student-teacher ratio is used to represent the education output status.The expenditure efficiency of each province is measured to lay the foundation for the subsequent analysis.Third,empirical analysis.Based on the aforementioned hypotheses and variable settings,an empirical test was conducted by applying the DEA method and provincial panel data from 2007-2016.It is concluded that(1)there is a significant positive relationship between fiscal transparency and local government’s expenditure efficiency;(2)fiscal transparency improves government’s expenditure efficiency by reducing misuse of funds as well as improving expenditure structure,i.e.,misuse of funds and expenditure structure have mediating effects in the relationship between fiscal transparency and government’s expenditure efficiency;(3)after fiscal information is made public and transparent,media monitoring ability provinces with stronger media monitoring ability,better citizen monitoring ability,and better fiscal resource endowment can better promote the role of fiscal transparency in improving government spending efficiency,i.e.,media monitoring,citizen monitoring,and fiscal resource endowment all have positive moderating effects.Finally,the conclusions drawn from the empirical analysis suggest some countermeasures:(1)promoting the construction of fiscal transparency in China and improving the open and transparent modern fiscal system;(2)improving the mechanism of citizen participation and giving full play to the role of external supervision;(3)improving the efficiency of fiscal expenditure of local governments in China and realizing the sustainable development of local finance.