关键词: 纵向财政关系, 省直管县财政体制改革, 财政竞争与合作

Abstract: Intergovernmental vertical fiscal competition and cooperation are important issues in the research of vertical fiscal relations China's initiation of the ProvinceManagingCounty （PMC） reform in 2004 provided a favorable opportunity to explore the dynamic choices of intergovernmental vertical fiscal competition and cooperation under the reform of vertical fiscal relations Since the PMC reform was not uniformly implemented but rather piloted in certain provinces，there are both reformed and nonreformed counties under the same prefecturelevel city This situation provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the decisionmaking of intergovernmental vertical fiscal competition or cooperation under the changes in vertical fiscal relations Before and after the reform，the fiscal affairs of nonreformed counties were under the direct jurisdiction of prefecturelevel cities If prefecturelevel cities where these counties were located initiated pilot reforms of the PMC，these nonreformed counties became what we term “remaining nonreformed counties”Since prefecturelevel cities might incur financial losses due to the reform，prefecturelevel cities no longer had direct fiscal jurisdiction over reformed counties，nor influence over their fiscal interests However，the fiscal affairs of remaining nonreformed counties continued to be directly managed by prefecturelevel cities Therefore，prefecturelevel cities，in addition to their own efforts，might engage in vertical fiscal competition or cooperation with remaining nonreformed counties to compensate for their own interests，thus potentially impacting the fiscal situation of these counties Based on this premise，the dynamic choice problem of intergovernmental vertical fiscal competition or cooperation can be explored under the reform of vertical fiscal relations
 To analyze this，we utilized county-level panel data from 1997 to 2009 and constructed a DID model to conduct empirical analysis The findings suggest that when prefecturelevel cities suffered financial losses due to the PMC reform，fiscal expenditures and transfer payments of nonreformed counties still under their jurisdiction tended to increase This indicates that prefecturelevel cities might provide assistance to remaining nonreformed counties to achieve cooperation for mutual benefits This result was robust and confirmed through various robustness tests including additional control variables，PSMDID，and placebo tests Heterogeneity analysis revealed that prefecturelevel cities in situations characterized by “strong prefecturelevel cities and weak counties” and prefecturelevel cities with strong revenuegenerating capabilities from governmental funds tended to provide greater assistance to remaining nonreformed counties Prefecturelevel cities primarily relied on special transfer payment tools rather than general transfer payments to provide assistance to remaining nonreformed counties

Key words: vertical fiscal relationship, PMC reform, fiscal competition and cooperation