Research On The Influence Of The "GFMIS" On The Efficiency Of Financial Expenditure

With the rapid development of digitalization and information technology,it has brought unprecedented opportunities for financial modernization,and it is urgent to give full play to the supporting role of digital finance.Since the second half of 1999,the government began to plan and build the "government financial management information system",and formally named it as the "GFMIS" at the beginning of 2002,which is one of the "twelve golden projects" series of national economic informatization formulated by China to adapt to the rapid development of global informatization.The integrated platform established by this policy supports the whole process of financial fund revenue and expenditure activities,and finally realizes "three connections" : the internal whole of the level,the external upper and lower levels,and the external peers.The use of information technology to promote the digital transformation of finance,so that financial data can give full play to its value,and as a starting point for deepening the reform of the financial system,it is conducive to the financial departments to better play their functions,and improve the quality and efficiency of financial governance with digital means.Finance is the foundation of a country,and fiscal expenditure is an important means for the government to achieve economic stability,optimize the allocation of resources,and distribute income.With the economic development entering a new stage,there is an imbalance between the slow growth of fiscal revenue and the rapid growth of fiscal expenditure in most regions of China,which makes the allocation of financial resources seriously unbalanced,and the overall level of China’s fiscal expenditure efficiency is not high.At present,due to the outbreak of the COVID-19,The global economic situation is not very optimistic,economic recovery difficulties and a series of problems,and with the implementation of policies such as tax cuts and fee reductions,the local government’s financial pressure increases unceasingly,our country financial revenue and expenditure situation is not optimistic.The low efficiency of fiscal expenditure is an important factor leading to financial risk,so it is urgent to improve the efficiency of fiscal expenditure.Therefore,this paper considers the "GFMIS",digital financial management and budget spending efficiency in one system to investigate the impact of the "GFMIS" on budget spending efficiency.This paper uses the "GFMIS" as a quasi-natural experiment and chooses the efficiency of city-level fiscal spending in China from 2005 to 2019 as the object of study,using a multitemporal double-difference model.The multitemporal double-difference model is used to investigate whether the "GFMIS" has improved the efficiency of tax spending.This study finds that:(1)The "GFMIS" policy has significantly improved the efficiency level of financial expenditure.The establishment of a large platform enables local governments to more flexibly determine a reasonable scale of fiscal revenue and expenditure according to local actual conditions,and improves the structure of financial expenditure.(2)The implementation of the "GFMIS" policy has improved the efficiency of financial expenditure,mainly because after the reform,the municipal government is under the supervision of the provincial government,which is more transparent and strict.Under the strong supervision of the provincial government and the public,the government officials’ illegal funds and misuse of funds are reduced,thus improving the efficiency of financial expenditure.(3)The implementation of the "GFMIS" policy has a heterogeneous effect on the improvement of the efficiency level of financial expenditure: the greater the government audit and the continuous optimization of the financial expenditure structure,the greater the role of the "GFMIS" in improving the efficiency of financial expenditure.The contributions of this paper are as follows: First,this paper proves that the implementation of the "GFMIS" can reduce the illegal funds of the government and further improve the efficiency of financial expenditure.This study not only provides some experience for theoretical analysis,but also provides new ideas for the study of the influencing factors of fiscal expenditure efficiency.Second,it provides evidence support for the necessity and importance of implementing the "GFMIS" in China.Few scholars use empirical methods to collect real data to study the policy effect and impact path of the "GFMIS" policy,providing some reference for relevant research.The research in this paper supplements the existing literature,provides experience support,and has certain innovation.