中国内陸部における政府間財政移転の決定要因と再分配効果

県レベルデータを用いた実証分析

抄録

In this paper, we use county data for inland areas of China to investigate empirically the flow of subsidies among governments following the political regime change in the late 1990s. Additionally, we attempt an analysis of how the government’s minority policy affects fiscal redistribution among counties.
Our focus on fiscal redistribution among counties was prompted by the following. First, most analyses to date have treated distribution among provinces; research using county data has been limited. Second, “fiscal distribution among areas” is carried out not only by the central government but also by various levels of local government, making it important to check that fiscal distribution is consistent among these various levels of government. Third, in order to identify factors that determine the total amount of subsidies, it is important to take notice of the characteristics of county economies, e.g. the range of minorities.
Our empirical analysis makes use of basic economic data from counties in 10 western provinces, plus Guanxi and Inner Mongolia. We chose the net fiscal transfer or fiscal subsidies as the dependent variable, and basic economic data or initial conditions in each county, e.g. per capita GDP or the ratio of minority people, as the independent variable.
Results of cross-sectional analysis using data from 1997, 2000 and 2003 show that the total amount of subsidies received by each county is closely related to the population and area of each county, which determines the number of bureaucrats in each county. This suggests that a considerable portion of the subsidies to each county is used to pay for the bureaucrats.
We also find that setting a dummy variable such as “minority autonomous region” has no significant effect on fiscal transfer or level of subsidy. This shows that the increase in subsidies to inland areas in recent years does not necessarily reflect a policy prejudiced against minority people.
Finally, we estimate and analyze the inequality of per capita GDP and the disposable income per capita among counties. We find that most of the inequality among counties can be explained by the inequality within each province. We also find that the inequality among provinces seems to be mitigated by fiscal transfer by the central government.