时间：2015/10/16，18：00-20：00

地点：经济学院一楼院史馆

主讲人：蔡璧涵

主讲题目：Fiscal Incentives and Political Budget Cycles in China

主讲人介绍：蔡璧涵，浙江大学经济学院 Assistant Professor， 于2014年在加州大学河湾分校获得经济学博士学位，研究领域为公共经济学，应用微观经济学和实验经济学。

内容简介：Political budget cycles in democracies have been extensively analyzed, but few studies of nondemocracies exist. This paper explores political budget cycles in China’s provinces. Using data from Chinese provinces from 1980 to 2006, the analysis finds that the effects of a provincial Leader’s tenure on political budget cycles are minimal, implying a weak causal relationship Between spending composition and a politician’s time in office at the provincial level. However, there exists a national coordinated cycle associated with the timing of the National Congress of the Communist Party (NCCP). Two years prior to the NCCP, politicians are likely to shift public spending toward capital expenditures, such as innovation funds and capital construction, and away from current expenditures, such as agricultural subsidies. The opposite pattern occurs during the year of the NCCP, when politicians increase current expenditures, such as social expenditures and government administration, and decrease capital expenditures. The increased capital expenditures two years prior to the NCCP are accompanied by an increase in taxation and total aggregate spending. The empirical results indicate that provincial budget cycles are mainly driven by national policies rather than by provincial leaders’ personal career incentives. Chinese leaders’ fiscal behaviors are constrained by the dynamics of the national leadership transition, resulting in similar distortions to those found in the democratic countries.