| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since the early 1980s, Chinese local governments have collected a significant amount of revenue outside the budgetary system. Fiscal shortage is commonly cited as the main reason for local extra-budgetary finance. However, a panel data analysis on provincial extra-budgetary practices reveals a different story. The findings suggest that extra-budgetary finance exists in China not as a strategy for local fiscal survival, but rather because local bureaucracies can conveniently exploit their administrative power to extract revenue from the local economy, and that extra-budgetary exactions fall disproportionately on peasants. Despite the constant calls by the central government to reform and regulate the extra-budgetary system, the centrally issued administrative directives have little impact on local practices.
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