IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1608.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal decentralization, public spending, and economic growth in China

Author

Listed:
  • Tao Zhang
  • Heng-fu Zou

Abstract

The authors of this report use data on China to demonstrate how the allocation of fiscal revenue and expenditures between central and local governments has affected economic growth since reforms that began in the late 1970s. They find a higher degree of fiscal decentralization associated with lower provincial economic growth over the past 15 years in China. This implies that fiscal reforms begun in China in the early 1980s have probably failed to promote the country's economic growth. This result is consistently significant and robust in their empirical examinations, and is surprising in light of the argument that fiscal decentralization usually contributes positively to provincial or local economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Tao Zhang & Heng-fu Zou, 1996. "Fiscal decentralization, public spending, and economic growth in China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1608, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1608
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1996/05/01/000009265_3961214130201/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Zou Heng-fu, 1994. "Dynamic Effects of Federal Grants on Local Spending," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 98-115, July.
    3. Edward M. Gramlich & Harvy Galper, 1973. "State and Local Fiscal Behavior and Federal Grant Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 4(1), pages 15-66.
    4. Bird, Richard & Wallich, Christine, 1993. "Fiscal decentralization and intergovernmental relations in transition economics : toward a systematic framework of analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1122, The World Bank.
    5. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    6. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(2), pages 209-287, October.
    7. Bahl, Roy W. & Wallich, Christine, 1992. "Intergovernmental fiscal relations in China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 863, The World Bank.
    8. Bird, Richard M., 1993. "Threading the Fiscal Labyrinth: Some Issues in Fiscal Decentralization," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 46(2), pages 207-27, June.
    9. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Swaroop, Vinaya & Heng-fu, Zou, 1996. "The composition of public expenditure and economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 313-344, April.
    10. Prud'homme, Remy, 1995. "The Dangers of Decentralization," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 10(2), pages 201-220, August.
    11. Zou, Heng-fu, 1996. "Taxes, Federal Grants, Local Public Spending, and Growth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 303-317, May.
    12. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Working Papers 1, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    13. Gramlich, Edward M., 1993. "A Policymaker's Guide to Fiscal Decentralization," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 46(2), pages 229-235, June.
    14. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    15. Wallace E. Oates & Wallace E. Oates, 2004. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Development," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 21, pages 377-383, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Feder, Gershon, 1983. "On exports and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1-2), pages 59-73.
    17. Harvey S. Rosen, 1988. "Fiscal Federalism: Quantitative Studies," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number rose88-1, March.
    18. Oates, Wallace E., 1993. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Development," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 46(2), pages 237-43, June.
    19. Bird, Richard M., 1993. "Threading the Fiscal Labyrinth: Some Issues in Fiscal Decentralization," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 46(2), pages 207-227, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ramiro Gil-Serrate & Julio López-Laborda, "undated". "Modelling Tax Decentralisation And Regional Growth," Working Papers 14-05 Classification-JEL , Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
    2. Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge & McNab, Robert M., 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1597-1616, September.
    3. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Robert McNab, 1997. "Fiscal Decentralization, Economic Growth, and Democratic Governance," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper9707, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    4. Davoodi, Hamid & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Study," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 244-257, March.
    5. Liutang Gong & Heng-fu Zou, 2003. "Fiscal Federalism, Public Capital Formation, and Endogenous Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 4(2), pages 471-490, November.
    6. Gong, Liutang & Zou, Heng-fu, 2002. "Optimal taxation and intergovernmental transfer in a dynamic model with multiple levels of government," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(12), pages 1975-2003, October.
    7. Zhang, Tao & Zou, Heng-fu, 2001. "The growth impact of intersectoral and intergovernmental allocation of public expenditure: With applications to China and India," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 58-81.
    8. Hongyi Li & Lixin Colin Xu & Heng‐fu Zou, 2000. "Corruption, Income Distribution, and Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 155-182, July.
    9. Xie, Danyang & Zou, Heng-fu & Davoodi, Hamid, 1999. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth in the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 228-239, March.
    10. Whitney Buser, 2011. "The impact of fiscal decentralization on economics performance in high-income OECD nations: an institutional approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 31-48, October.
    11. Umaima Arif & Eatzaz Ahmad, 2018. "A Framework For Analyzing The Impact Of Fiscal Decentralization On Macroeconomic Performance, Governance And Economic Growth," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(01), pages 3-39, May.
    12. Celal Kucuker, 2003. "Türkiye Ýktisat Kongresi Büyüme Stratejileri Çalýþma Grubu," Working Papers 2003/5, Turkish Economic Association.
    13. Dimitrios Paparas & Christian Richter, 2015. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: Empirical evidence from the European Union," Working Papers 2015.06, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    14. Hyun Park, 2010. "Fiscal Policy and Equitable Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 121-140, February.
    15. Abu-Bader, Suleiman & Abu-Qarn, Aamer S., 2003. "Government expenditures, military spending and economic growth: causality evidence from Egypt, Israel, and Syria," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 25(6-7), pages 567-583, September.
    16. Liutang Gong & Heng-fu Zou, 2002. "Effects of Growth and Volatility in Public Expenditures on Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 3(2), pages 379-406, November.
    17. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Lars P. Feld & Jan Schnellenbach, 2014. "Fiscal Federalism, Decentralization and Economic Growth: Survey and Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 4985, CESifo.
    18. Zou, Heng-fu, 1996. "Taxes, Federal Grants, Local Public Spending, and Growth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 303-317, May.
    19. Jin, Jing & Zou, Heng-fu, 2005. "Fiscal decentralization, revenue and expenditure assignments, and growth in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 1047-1064, December.
    20. repec:bgu:wpaper:163 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Amit Nandan & Hrushikesh Mallick, 2022. "Do growth-promoting factors induce income inequality in a transitioning large developing economy? An empirical evidence from Indian states," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 1109-1139, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public&Municipal Finance; Public Sector Economics&Finance; Urban Economics; Economic Theory&Research; Banks&Banking Reform; Urban Economics; Economic Theory&Research; Public Sector Economics&Finance; National Governance; Public&Municipal Finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • R5 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1608. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.