省直管县财政体制改革能否 改善民生性公共服务*
DOES PROVINCE DIRECTLY GOVERNING COUNTY FISCAL SYSTEM REFORM IMPROVE LIVELIHOOD PUBLIC SERVICE

摘要 本文采用全国县级数据，运用基于倾向得分匹配的双重差分方法，考察了省直管县财政体制改革对民生性公共服务的影响。实证结果表明，省直管县财政体制改革总体上不利于民生性公共服务水平的提高：在医疗服务方面，改革对人均医疗床位数的影响虽不明显，但导致医疗支出比重相比于改革前下降了1167%。在公共教育方面，改革对中小学生数占人口比重产生了负面效应，且导致教育支出比重较改革前下降了419%。另外，笔者还发现，改革对民生性公共服务的抑制作用具有明显的省份差异性和时间滞后性。
Abstract： This paper investigates the effects of province directly governing county (PGC) reform on livelihood public service based on countylevel data by using differenceindifferences propensity score matching approach. Our empirical results indicate that the PGC reform inhibits the improvement of counties livelihood public service. The PGC reform does not have an obvious impact on the number of medical beds per capital, but decrease the proportion of county governments health expenditure to total expenditure significantly by 1167%.The reform also have a small negative effect on the ratio of primary and secondary students to total population and a significantly negative effect on the share of education expenditure, reducing the share by 419%. In addition, the results show that the PGC reform has heterogeneous effects between provinces and timelag effects.