摘要
税收竞争如何影响资本流动是公共经济学长期关注的经典话题,但相关的理论和经验证据有待深入挖掘。本文构建了一个多地区的费率竞争理论模型,分析发现地方政府为了追求经济绩效会竞相降低养老保险缴费率吸引资本流入,而区域间的费率协调有利于缓解这一现象。基于2007—2019年A股上市公司及其子公司的数据,本文利用费率统一的外生冲击构造双重差分模型,实证考察地方政府费率决策从竞争走向协调过程中对资本流动的因果效应。研究发现,处理组企业在费率统一之后资本外流减少,具体表现为上市公司到省内低费率地区设立子公司的概率、数量以及投资的概率均出现显著下降。这一效应在国有企业以及规模较大、劳动密集型的企业表现更为显著。进一步的分析表明,费率统一改革有利于缓解区域间费率竞争引致的养老保险损失,均衡地区间的缴费负担分配,增强基金的可持续性。本研究对于优化社会保险制度设计,建设全国统一大市场具有重要的启示。
According to the standard tax competition theory(Zodrow&Mieszkowski,1986;Wilson,1986),local governments will compete to reduce tax rates on capital in order to attract capital inflows,which eventually lead to low tax rate and inadequate supply of public goods,resulting in social welfare losses.However,studies that provide for the casual relationship between pension contribution rate competition and capital flow are scarce.The reform process of China's pension insurance system from decentralization to provincial pooling provides the possibility of theoretical analysis and empirical evidence for exploring this problem.Local governments in China were able to set their own pension contribution rates within a reasonable range prior to the unification of provincial pension contribution rates.In order to balance the payment burden of pension insurance among regions and create a fair competitive business environment,starting from 1998,Chinese central government requires all provinces,responsible for the central government,to gradually unify the statutory contribution rates for pension insurance(hereinafter referred to as rate unification)with all cities within the province implementing the same contribution rate.The centralization of the right to adjust pension contribution rate in provinces reduces the policy space for local governments to implement differentiated rates,and local governments'tax rate decisions gradually move from competition to coordination.This paper first constructs a multi-regional pension contribution rate model to examine the relationship between rate competition and capital flows.We find that local governments will attract capital inflows through the race to the bottom in pension contribution rate to promote local economic development,while the coordination of pension contribution rate among regions is conducive to alleviating such problem.Second,based on the data of listed enterprises and their subsidiaries from 2007 to 2019,this paper constructs a difference-in-differences model using the reform of rate unification to investigate the causal effect of rate competition on capital flow in the process of pension contribution rate decisions developing from competition to coordination.The empirical results confirm our theoretical conjectures and show that the capital outflow of enterprises in the treatment group is significantly reduced after the reform.In specific,the probability of setting up subsidiaries,the number of subsidiaries set up,and the investment of parent enterprises in lower-rate areas,are all significantly decreased after the reform.The conclusions are still valid in a series of robustness tests.Heterogeneity analysis shows that state-owned enterprises,large-scale enterprises and enterprises of higher labor intensity will be more significantly affected by the reform.Further analysis shows that rate unification is beneficial to easing the pension fund losses caused by rate competition,balancing the distribution of contribution burden between cities,and enhancing the sustainability of pension fund.This paper might contribute to existing literature in three aspects.Firstly,we provide theoretical and empirical evidences for the causal relationship between pension contribution rate competition and capital flow.On the one hand,this paper constructs a multi-regional model with rate unification as an exogenous shock,which provides the causal evidence that the rate competition affects capital flow.On the other hand,this paper uses micro data to better portray the direction of capital flows.Secondly,we enrich studies on the economic consequences of the tax coordination and pension insurance system reform.The extent to which tax coordination can mitigate the negative effects of rate competition has few empirical supports,and this paper finds that inter-regional rate coordination is conducive to alleviating capital flows caused by rate competition.In addition,this paper examines the economic effects of the pension insurance system reform from the geospatial perspective,enriching existing researches.Finally,this paper also provides inspirations for how governments optimize the unification of pension insurance system and construct the national unified pension insurance market.
作者
黄永颖
刘庆
张克中
HUANG Yongying;LIU Qing;ZHANG Kezhong(School of Management,Huazhong University of Science and Technology;School of Public Finance and Taxation,Zhongnan University of Economics and Law)
出处
《经济研究》
CSSCI
北大核心
2022年第12期162-179,共18页
Economic Research Journal
基金
国家社会科学基金一般项目(20BJY058)的资助
关键词
养老保险
费率竞争
费率统一
资本流动
Pension Contribution
Rate Competition
Rate Unification
Capital Flow
