Externalities and bailouts : hard and soft budget constraints in intergovernmental fiscal relations
Externalities and bailouts : hard and soft budget constraints in intergovernmental fiscal relations
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外部性和救助：政府间财政关系中的硬预算约束和软预算约束
DOI：
10.1596/1813-9450-1843
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发表时间：
1999
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
D. Wildasin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
D. Wildasin
在许多发展中国家和转型期国家，国家以下各级政府正在承担更大的财政责任。然而，令人关切的是，财政权力下放可能会削弱财政纪律-地方当局可能会作出承诺或承担债务，从而导致中央政府以特别转移支付或救助的形式提供大规模支助。（美国主要城市最近的经验表明，这些问题不仅限于发展中国家。这种救助可能反过来导致国家财政失衡、过度借贷和宏观经济不稳定。一些分析人士建议中央政府对下级政府的财政行为保持严格控制，但另一些人认为，这种控制可能会削弱财政分权的目标，包括自治权。作者指出，当地方提供的公共服务使社会其他人受益时，中央政府可能有强烈的动机支持地方政府的财政。这种干预的前景可能反过来促使地方提供不充分的服务，产生大量的溢出效益，而将当地资源用于可能有利于当地选民而不是非居民的目的。当中央财政干预力度足够大时，当地方失去对财政资源使用的控制权对当地居民的代价并不太高时，地方决策者将采取行动促使中央政府救助，从而导致整个系统的低效率结果。这并不是说财政分权会产生不正当的激励措施，或者要求中央政府控制地方财政政策。但当地方政府被认为太大而不能倒时，救助的动机可能会特别强烈--例如，纽约、费城和华盛顿（美国）以及圣保罗和里约热内卢（巴西）。在这种情况下，提供服务--或偿债--的重大中断所造成的影响可能代价太高，中央政府无法忽视。作者说，财政纪律问题的产生可能不是因为财政权力下放太多，而是因为财政权力下放太少。更彻底的权力下放可能是有意义的-例如，将财政权力下放给较小的管辖区或专门职能单位，或将大型的国家以下一级管辖区细分为许多较小的单位。
Subnational governments are assuming greater fiscal responsibility in many developing and transition countries. There is concern, however, that fiscal decentralization may weaken fiscal discipline -that local authorities may undertake commitments or incur debt obligations that subsequently result in massive central government support, in the form of extraordinary transfers, or bailouts. (Recent experience in major U.S. cities shows that these problems are not restricted to developing countries.) Such bailouts could in turn cause national fiscal imbalances, excessive borrowing, and macroeconomic instability. Some analysts recommend that central authorities maintain strict control over the fiscal behavior of lower-level governments, but others argue that such controls could undercut the goals of fiscal decentralization, including autonomy. The author shows that central authorities may have strong incentives to prop up the finances of local governments when the public services provided locally benefit the rest of society. The prospect of such interventions may in turn create incentives for localities to underprovide services that produce substantial spillover benefits, using local resources instead for purposes that may benefit local constituencies but not nonresidents. When central fiscal interventions are big enough, and when a loss of local control over the use of fiscal resources is not too costly to local residents, local decisionmakers will act to induce central government bailouts, resulting in inefficient outcomes for the system as a whole. This is not to say that fiscal decentralization produces perverse incentives or requires central government control over local fiscal policies. But incentives for bailouts can be especially strong when local governments are considered too big to fail -for example, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC (in the United States) and Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (in Brazil). In such cases, the repercussions from major breakdowns in the provision of services -or in debt servicing- can be too costly for central governments to ignore. Problems of fiscal discipline may result not because there is too much fiscal decentralization, says the author, but because there is too little. It may make sense to carry out more thorough decentralization -for example, devolving fiscal authorities to smaller jurisdictions or special-purpose functional units, or subdividing large subnational jurisdictions into many smaller units.