Fiscal decentralisation: Incentives, redistribution and reform in China

In: Oxford development studies, Band 27, Heft 1, S. 5-32

Abstract

China's great size and diversity give rise to serious principal-agent problems among tiers of government. The fiscal relationships between central and provincial governments over the period of economic reform are examined within an agency framework. The provincial governments retained an increasing proportion of their revenue collected over the reform period, and the extent of fiscal redistribution by the centre from the rich to the poor provinces correspondingly declined. The authors try to explain the fiscal reforms of the mid-1990s, the effects of which are not yet discernible. (DSE/DÜI)