Fiscal Policy For Coordinated Economic Development Of Metropolitan Region

Nowadays, the world's economy is developing towards integration and regionalization. Metropolitan Region, one of the most important tendencies in urbanization in developed countries, has played the most active and controlling part in the world's economy. The Metropolitan Region pattern has thus drawn most attention in the whole urbanization process. The development of the Metropolitan Region in China has just begun during which it has been influenced by various factors. This topic has not been touched upon in China until the 1980s, which inspires us to conduct further research about this topic. This article intends to explore effective fiscal measures to narrow regional economic gap thus to promote further economic growth and to achieve a coordinated development. The whole article is based on the analysis of comparative advantages each functional part enjoys in the Metropolitan Region. It is hoped that this article can provide some theoretical and rational guidance during the government's public policy making process.The article believes that regional fiscal policy which aims to promote a coordinated economic development of the Metropolitan Region should be drafted under the framework of the regional economic development strategy. Government's interference and market's adjustment should be combined. Fiscal revenue and expenditure system, such as the taxation preference system, transferring payment system, government's investment and financing system should be carefully adopted. Guided by the principle of "giving priority to efficiency with due consideration to fairness", the Chinese government conducts the non-equilibrium development strategy. The article holds that the government should stick to the "comparative advantages and the win—win" principle as well as the "coordination and efficiency" principle to adjust the resource distributions between the core regions and satellite regions, the developed regions and the underdeveloped regions to optimize the economic structure within the Metropolitan Region and strengthen the economic power in order to achieve the ultimate goal to narrow the gap between regions to realize a harmonious and sustainable development of the whole region.There are five parts in this paper. The first part is an introduction. The second is a review about relevant studies on the relationship between fiscal policy and coordinated development of regional economies as well as studies on the theory of the Metropolitan Region. The third part lays the theoretical foundation of the paper. Based on the theory that fiscal policy can control and adjust regional economic development, the article adopts the approach of factor contribution to analyze regional differences in fiscal revenue and expenditure. Both chronological parameter model andβ-constringent parameter are used to investigate the influence on the economic development of the Metropolitan Region from both the central and local governments' fiscal expenditure as well as the tax policy. The conclusion drawn from this part helps both the central and local governments to target focuses in the coordinated development of regional economies so as to draft effective policies and measures. The fourth part proposes that different fiscal policies should be taken to enhance the economic development of the developed regions as well as the underdeveloped regions to narrow the regional gap to ensure a coordinated development of all parts of the Metropolitan Region. The final part of the paper is empirical analysis in which Jinan is taken as an example. The paper studies some main economic indicators of the Metropolitan Region such as gross economic power, structures of the industries, levels of the industrialization, levels of its opening to the outside world and people's standard of living. Also, quantitative analysis is used to investigate its regional differences of scale and structure in fiscal revenue and expenditure. Finally, based on the existing problems, the article provides some fiscal suggestions to support the development of Jinan Metropolitan Region. The practical meaning of the article lies mainly in this part.