Fiscal Decentralization,Fiscal Expenditure On Science And Technology And Local Innovation Ability

The 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "China’s economy has shifted from a stage of high-speed growth to a stage of high-quality development".Improving innovation capabilities is the only way to realize the transformation of new and old kinetic energy and promote high-quality development.It is also the key to addressing China’s imbalanced and inadequate development.In recent years,local governments have begun to compete around innovation.Fiscal scientific and technological expenditures to promote the development of local innovation have become one of the important means of local government competition.Fiscal decentralization,as an important institutional arrangement for fiscal power adjustment between the central and local governments,has a profound impact on the fiscal expenditure behavior of local governments and will have an important impact on the improvement of local innovation ability and regional high-quality development.In order to implore the impact of fiscal decentralization on local innovation ability and the role of fiscal scientific and technological expenditures,this paper first puts forward the research hypothesis based on the analysis of relevant theories and mechanisms,that is,the improvement of fiscal decentralization will significantly promote the improvement of local innovation capability,and fiscal decentralization promotes the improvement of local innovation capability by improving the fiscal expenditure preference on science and technology of local governments.Secondly,it analyzes the current situation of fiscal decentralization,fiscal scientific and technological expenditures and local innovation ability.The findings are as follows: at the national level,fiscal expenditure decentralization and fiscal revenue decentralization in China continue to improve as a whole,but there are still significant differences among provinces;the proportion of fiscal scientific and technological expenditures is also increasing year by year,and the growth rate of fiscal scientific and technological expenditures of local governments gradually exceed that of the central government,indicating that local governments are becoming the main body of fiscal scientific and technological expenditures.At the same time,the innovation ability of 30 provinces is measured.It is found that there is a large inter-provincial gap in innovation ability,and the mean of innovation ability of eastern,central and western regions is decreasing.Based on the above analysis,this paper selects the panel data of various provinces from 2008 to 2019,introduces the local fiscal scientific and technological expenditures as a mediating variable,and constructs a mediating effect model to test the research hypothesis.The results show that: the increase degree of fiscal decentralization has a significant effect on the improvement of local innovation ability,and the fiscal decentralization can also affect the local innovation ability by affecting fiscal scientific and technological expenditures.The effect of fiscal decentralization on local innovation capability has regional heterogeneity.Fiscal scientific and technological expenditures have a mediating effect in eastern and central regions,while fiscal decentralization has no obvious effect in western regions,and the mediating effect of f fiscal scientific and technological expenditures is not significant.Accordingly,this paper argues that the effect of fiscal decentralization should be further released from the aspects of fiscal system reform,promotion incentive mechanism,division of powers and expenditures responsibilities.