英文摘要与关键词

英文摘要
The Effect of Transfer Payment Uncertainty on Allocation of Local Public Goods and
its Influencing Mechanism: An Empirical Test Based on Transfer Payment
Fluctuation in Prefecture-Level Cities

Zheng, JiaLiang

（School of Public Finance and Taxation, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan
430073, China）
Abstract: As an important source of income for local governments, once the transfer payment is
characterized by palpable uncertainty, it will have a great impact on the local economy and even directly
affect people's living standard. Therefore, the uncertainty of the transfer payment has been discussed all
the time. Starting from the budget management system of transfer payment in China, this paper
elaborates the effect of local public goods allocation and its influencing mechanism of the uncertainty of
the transfer payment by constructing a theoretical framework. Theoretical analysis shows that the
uncertainty of the transfer payment will reduce the expected utility of local governments, leading to
local governments choosing to create more fiscal revenue by providing more productive public goods
while ignoring or even squeezing out the allocation of non-productive public goods. The empirical test
results based on the prefecture-level and city-level panel data show that when the uncertainty of transfer
payment increases by 1 unit, the paved road area per capita, the ratio of teachers to students in ordinary
middle schools and the number of hospitals per 10,000 people will change by about 78.6%, -4.5% and -
6.4% on average. It can be seen that in the face of unstable transfer payment income, local governments
are indeed inclined to provide more productive public goods, while squeezing out non-productive public
goods represented by medical care and education. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of
special transfer payments, general transfer payments and tax rebates on local public goods presents a
ranking from strong to weak; The impact of transfer payment fluctuation on local public goods showed a
trend from strong to weak in western, central and eastern regions. The influence path analysis shows that
with the increase of the uncertainty of the transfer payment, the local government will affect the
allocation of local public goods by adjusting the fiscal expenditure structure to productive expenditure.
Key words: Uncertainty of the transfer payment; Special transfer payments; Local public goods;
Fiscal expenditure bias effect