中文摘要：

近十年来,土地财政成为中国财政体制中最受关注的问题,一个主要的假说是地方政府面临了巨大的财政压力,出让土地获得收入是地方政府的“无奈之举”。本文利用1998—2007年部长更换的自然实验对该假说予以检验。研究发现：新任部长会显著降低其来源地城市的财政压力,这些部长会利用排他性的权力对中央的转移支付分配产生影响,使得其来源地的城市获得的转移支付增加12%;部长来源地的财政压力变化没有对这些地区的土地出让行为产生影响,无论是土地出让面积还是土地出让收入都没有随着财政压力的下降而减少;土地财政的真实原因是投资冲动,即使是中央指定用途的转移支付,都被用于生产性的基础设施建设,而不是基本公共服务的提供。因此,从本文引申的政策建议是,由于财政压力并不构成地方政府出让土地的真实原因,期冀通过向地方放权的方式来解决土地财政问题是不可行的,未来的改革方向应该是把重点放在土地财政制度上。

英文摘要：

Land finance is the most important issue in China during the last decade, one explanation is that the local governments are pushed to sell the land because they have great fiscal pressure. This paper uses the natural experiment of newly appointed minister in China between 1998 and 2007 to test the hypothesis, we get several finds. Fistly, newly elected ministers significantly reduce the fiscal pressure of their hometown, those ministers will change the allocation of central earmarked grants and increase 12% grants for their hometown. Secondly, the reductions of fiscal pressure of ministers＇ hometown have no impact on the land finance behavior, the area and revenue of land sales have not changed. Thirdly, the real cause of land finance is the impulse to invest, even the earmarked grants are used for productive infrastructure but not the basic public service. The policy implications of this paper is that the future reform should focus on the land leasehold policy, while the decentralization is not a feasible way because the fiscal pressure is not the real cause of land finance.