Economic Growth Target Setting and Local Debt Expansion:From the Perspective of Racing-to-the-top Competition
There are many researches on the behavior characteristics and influences of local economic growth target(hereafter EGT for short),but researches on horizontal competition strategy of setting EGT as well as its debt expansion effect are still scarce.In this paper,a mathematical model comprehensively considering performance benefit and risk cost is constructed to demonstrate that,the completely symmetric pure strategy Nash equilibrium game will promote the local government's EGT setting with both racing-to-the-bottom and racing-to-the-top motivation,and the latter motivation prevails.By improving the traditional spatial weight matrix,an asymmetric response model is constructed to accurately decompose these two opposite motivations.Based on the urban panel data from 2005 to 2018,the racing-to-the-top motivation is verified and measured.The regression analysis further matching the debt financing data of local financing platforms show that the racing-to-the-top effect among cities in the province will significantly increase the probability and scale of municipal investment bond.Al-though the non-standard debt financing dominated by governmental trust is not significantly affected,the formation probabili-ty of its guarantee circle seems significantly increased,which might contribute to regional and systemic fiscal and financial risks.This paper suggests that in addition to the top-down vertical amplification,horizontal competition among governments is another root cause of the high EGT,and thus pressing infrastructure construction to the hidden debt risk transmission.The conclusion points out the improvement direction for further optimization of performance assessment and further promotion of high-quality economic development in the future.
Economic Growth TargetRace to the TopLocal Debt ExpansionLocal Financing Platform
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
