Fiscal Reform and Public Education Spending: A Quasi-natural Experiment of Fiscal Decentralization in China

Wen Wang, Xinye Zheng () and Zhirong Zhao

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 2012, vol. 42, issue 2, 334-356

Abstract: Since the 1990s, China has pushed forward the province-managing-county (PMC) reform in some provinces as an experiment of fiscal decentralization. The reform provides a good opportunity to examine the impact of fiscal decentralization on fiscal behaviors of local governments in China. Using a data set of 108 counties in Henan Province during 1999--2008, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to investigate how the PMC reform affects local public education spending. The results show that counties given additional fiscal autonomy tend to spend a lower share of their annual expenditures on public education than other counties do. The findings suggest that fiscal decentralization does not necessarily make local governments more responsive to long-term benefits for local residents. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pjr039 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:publus:v:42:y:2012:i:2:p:334-356

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Publius: The Journal of Federalism is currently edited by Paul Nolette and Philip Rocco

More articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism from CSF Associates Inc. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().