经济增长目标与专项债务限额使用

李征召¹　韩 宁²　赵德昭³

（1. 中南财经政法大学；2. 中央财经大学；3. 河南财经政法大学）

   

内容提要：作为近年来增量最大的财政资源，专项债在中国经济高质量发展过程中发挥着重要作用。本文利用手工搜集整理的2015—2021年283个地级市面板数据，考察经济增长目标对专项债务限额使用率的影响。研究结果显示，经济增长目标能够促进专项债务限额使用率的提高，这一结果在经济增长目标为硬约束或者存在“加码”行为时更为明显。机制分析结果表明，经济增长目标会通过推动基础设施投资水平的提高来加强专项债务限额的使用。异质性分析发现，经济增长目标对专项债务限额使用率的正向影响在距省会城市较近、晋升竞争压力较大以及东中部地区的地级市更明显。本文的研究为地方政府经济增长目标体系的完善和专项债务管理制度的优化提供了政策参考。

关键词：经济增长目标；专项债务限额使用；目标约束；加码；基础设施投资

作者简介：李征召，中南财经政法大学财政税务学院博士研究生，武汉，430073；韩宁，中央财经大学中国财政发展协同创新中心博士研究生，通信作者，北京，102206；赵德昭，河南财经政法大学财政税务学院教授，郑州，450046。

基金项目：国家社会科学基金一般项目“地方财政收入目标约束影响共同富裕的理论机制、效应及对策研究”(22BJL023）

引用格式：李征召,韩宁,赵德昭.经济增长目标与专项债务限额使用[J].经济与管理研究,2024,45(8):3-16.DOI:10.13502/j.cnki.issn1000-7636.2024.08.001.　　　　

Economic Growth Targets and Use of Special Debt Limit

LI Zhengzhao¹, HAN Ning², ZHAO Dezhao³

(1. Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073;
2. Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 102206;
3. Henan University of Economics and Law, Zhengzhou 450046)

Abstract: As the largest incremental financial resources in China in recent years, local government special debts play an important role in the high-quality development of the regional economy. In the context of implementing limit management of local government debt, it is more realistic to identify the level of special debt expansion by the utilization rate of special debt limits. Considering that economic growth targets play a crucial role in China’s economic development, local governments, as the makers of local economic growth targets, will be deeply influenced by these targets. Therefore, this paper constructs a systematic GMM model based on the hand-collected panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities from 2015 to 2021 and empirically examines the impact of local governments’ economic growth targets on the use of special debt limits.

The findings reveal that local governments’ economic growth targets can increase the utilization rate of special debt limits, and this effect is more significant when these targets are implemented as rigid constraints and in the presence of excessive policy steps. This remains valid after using the instrumental variables method to solve the endogeneity problem, controls for the effects of the age of officials and changes in officials, excludes the samples of provincial capitals and cities with independent planning status, and replaces the explained variables to carry out the robustness test. Further mechanism analyses show that local governments’ economic growth targets will increase the utilization rate of special debt limits by driving up the level of infrastructure investment, thereby resulting in a higher rate. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the enhancement effect is more significant in prefecture-level cities closer to provincial capitals, characterized by higher competitive pressure for officials’ promotion, and in the eastern and central regions. Therefore, it is suggested that local governments optimize their economic growth target system, foster their debt limit management system and allocation rules, and improve the investment structure and efficiency of the use of special bond funds.

The marginal contributions of this paper are as follows. First, from the perspective of the economic growth target, it analyzes the reasons for the expansion of special debt since the reform of the local government debt management system, which enriches the related research on the reasons for the expansion of local government special debt. Second, it explores the reasons for the expansion of debt from the perspective of the debt limit utilization rate. The findings provide a theoretical basis and practical references for improving local governments’ economic growth target system and enhancing the special debt limit management system.

Keywords: economic growth target; use of special debt limit; objective constraint; repeated increment; infrastructure investment

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