| China is a populous, vast, regional differentiated developing country. Promoting coordinated regional development is of strategic significance in constructing well-off society and accelerating national modernization process. Coordinated regional development is affected by many factors such as natural factor, economic factor, cultural factor as well as institutional factor. Fiscal decentralization is one of the most important institutional factors influencing coordinated regional development.It has both theoretical and practical value to study the influence of fiscal decentralization on coordinated regional development. From theoretical point of view, the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional economic development is a hot topic in the field of public economy and regional economy. Many scholars studied the influences of fiscal decentralization on regional gap, regional integration and regional competition. But so far, a comprehensive theoretical framework has not been established to study the influences of fiscal decentralization on coordinated regional development. From practical point of view, China'fiscal decentralization has provided effective incentives to promote rapid regional development. However, meanwhile, the problem of imbalanced regional development is also quite obvious, bringing severe challenges for China's development. Therefore, it is required to adjust and reform current fiscal decentralization in order that it is more beneficial for coordinated regional development.Along "theoretical analysis-empirical analysis-policy analysis", the paper systematically studys the effect of fiscal decentralization on coordinated regional development. In theoretical analysis section, the paper investigates the causal logic relationship between fiscal decentralization and coordinated regional development as well as the path, mechanism and results of the influence of fiscal decentralization on coordinated regional development. In empirical analysis section, by comprehensive usage of statistical, regression and case analysis, the paper analyzes the influences of fiscal decentralization on China's coordinated regional development and explains the reasons of such influences. In policy analysis section, the paper puts forward that fiscal decentralization reform should be further deepened to strengthen its positive influences on promoting coordinated regional development. The paper also designs a complete, operable reform plan as well as its measures.The paper obtains the following main conclusions based on theoretical and positive analysis:1. The influencing paths of fiscal decentralization on coordinated regional development includes:intergovernmental responsibility and fiscal expenditure division, regional fiscal revenue distribution, local government fiscal competition and regional fiscal regulation. In the real world, fiscal decentralization contains both factors promoting or restricting coordinated regional development. Therefore, fiscal decentralization will have dual effects on coordinated regional development.2. The overall framework of intergovernmental responsibility and fiscal expenditure division system has been set up. But when the specific public affair is concerned, the intergovernmental responsibility and fiscal expenditure division is not quite clear and reasonable. Compared to the requirements of coordinated regional development, there still have many drawbacks in current intergovernmental responsibility and fiscal expenditure division system. The most outstanding problem among them is that central and provincial governments have vacancies in taking their responsibility while county government's responsibility burden is ovel-weight.3. In China's current fiscal decentralization system, there is always a large gap in regional fiscal revenue distribution. The primary distribution mechanism is not reasonable because of the lacks in longitudinal fiscal revenue division and horizontal tax transfer. The regional fiscal revenue gap is even larger than regional economic gap. The balance capacity of fiscal transfer payment is insufficient to reverse the pattern of regional fiscal revenue imbalance.4. The local government fiscal competition in China has both advantages and disadvantages effects on coordinated regional development. The fiscal competition promotes cross-regional capital flow and speed up regional infrastructure construction. However, because of inequality in competition starting point, regional gap is becoming larger during the competition process. In addition, as the fiscal competition over-focused on attracting capital and tax sources, the regional economic and social development structure has been distorted.5. The local government in China carries out fiscal transfer payment policy, regional investment policy and regional tax policy to promote coordinated regional development and has achieved some results. However, because of the lacks in regulation policies design and local implementation ineffectiveness, the validity of the regulation policies has been weakended.Based on the theoretical and positive analysis results, the paper puts forward a suggestion to eastablish a fiscal decentralization system that is beneficial for coordinated regional development. The detailed suggestions include:Firstly, the intergovernmental responsibility and fiscal expenditure division should be adjusted so as to optimize the intergovernmental responsibility division in regional development. Secondly, regional fiscal revenue distribution system should be improved to narrow regional fiscal revenue gap. Thirdly, local government fiscal competition should be regulated so as to form a benign regional competitive mode. Last but not least, regional fiscal regulation should be improved in order to increase the effectiveness of regulation policies. |
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