臺灣地方政府財政狀態與社會經濟關聯性之分析

An Analysis of Fiscal Position and Socio-economic Relevance of Local Government in Taiwan

陳佳欣(Jia-Hsin Chen)

指導教授 ： 蘇建榮

國立臺北大學/公共事務學院/財政學系/碩士(2014年)

摘要

近年來，我國地方政府財政收支情況惡化，收入增長速度不及支出增加速度且在資金運用上缺乏彈性，使得收支失衡的現象愈發明顯，為了提升全民對地方政府財政監督的參與，使國人更加重視地方政府的財政問題，本文試圖建置適用於評估臺灣地方政府財政狀態之指標，此外本文也嘗試找出影響地方政府財政狀態的相關因素，以期能對地方政府財政狀態有更全面性的了解。本文主要是以美國國際縣市管理協會(International City/County Management Association，ICMA)提出的財政指標為概念，結合臺灣地方政府經濟、財政情況編製「財政健全指數」，包括：現金償付(cash solvency)能力、預算支應(budgetary solvency)能力、長債償還(long-run solvency)能力及永續服務(service-level solvency)能力等，四大償付項目共17項指標。評估結果顯示嘉義縣和臺東縣的現金償付能力及長債償還能力較佳，而臺北市及臺中市的預算支應能力及永續服務能力較好，綜合表現最優的前三名則是臺北市、臺中市及新竹市，較差的則是屏東縣、彰化縣和南投縣，此外，桃園縣和臺東縣的財政情況正明顯好轉，苗栗縣正逐漸惡化，然而2011年改制後，新北市的財政狀況轉好，臺北市和臺中市稍稍變差，而高雄市和臺南市的財政狀況持平，因此，改制帶來的影響目前尚不能下定論，須持續觀察。
本文以編製之財政健全指數與各縣市社會經濟條件進行關聯性分析，使用2002年至2012年臺灣23縣市(不含金門、馬祖，2011年改制後為20縣市))的橫斷面追蹤資料進行實證研究，將影響地方政府財政狀態的相關因素歸納出三個面向，即人口結構面、就業結構面以及公共建設面。實證結果顯示人口結構對於地方政府的財政狀況有一定的影響力；而三級產業結構中的工業與服務業以及失業率衡量就業結構面的影響，結果均為顯著；代表公共建設面的兩個變數售電量和自來水供水普及率則是前者對地方政府的財政狀況有正向影響，但後者的影響為不顯著；另一方面，從實證結果也發現，區域效果的影響極為顯著，表示縣市特性很明顯，各縣市間差異大。綜合上述各縣市政府財政狀況的評估結果及影響地方財政的因素分析，本文建議地方政府可透過下列方式改善其財政狀況：一、增加勞動人口；二、積極推動就業；三、完善公共建設。

關鍵字

地方財政 ； 財政困境 ； 財政健全指數 ； 財政指標

並列摘要

Recently, the imbalance between local governments’ revenue and expenditure was due to the revenues growing speed was slower than the expenditures increasing speed. Lacking of flexibility in the usage of government fund led to the fiscal condition worse off as well. In order to encourage the masses participate in local governments’ fiscal supervision, to make people pay more attention to fiscal problems of local governments, we attempted to create a suitable fiscal condition assessment indicators for local governments in Taiwan. Besides, we also tried to figure out some relevant factors which might affect the local governments’ fiscal condition. With a great intention, we hoped to build a widely view on the local governments’ fiscal status to have a comprehensive understanding in this issue. Accordingly, in this paper, we combined the concept of fiscal indicators in International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in U.S. and the characteristics of local governments’ in Taiwan, including financial position, financial condition and economic condition, to build up the “Fiscal Sound Index”. Fiscal Sound Index is composed of four solvency, including cash solvency, budgetary solvency, long-run solvency and service-level solvency. The assessment results showed that Chiayi County and Taitung County were best in cash solvency and long-run solvency while Taipei City and Taichung City were excelled both in budgetary solvency and service-level solvency. The top three best in overall performance were Taipei City, Taichung City and Hsinchu City; in contrast, Pingtung County, Changhua County and Nantou County were the worst of all. However, the fiscal condition of Taoyuan County and Taitung County were significantly improved, while Miaoli County was gradually deteriorated. After the political system reformed in 2011, New Taipei City's financial situation improved but Taipei City and Taichung City were getting slightly worse, and Kaohsiung City and Tainan City were remain the same. Therefore, it inferred that the impact of the political system reformed was still not clear.
An empirical analysis was used to explore some socio-economic variables influence fiscal sound index for 23 countries (20 countries in 2011 and 2012 period) over 2002 to 2012 period in Taiwan. We summed the relevant factors which might affect the local governments’ fiscal condition into three dimensions, including population structure, employment structure and infrastructure. Our findings suggest that local governments are significantly benefited from the ratio of compulsory education students of population structure, the ratio of commerce and service sector’s employment structure and the variable of energy sold of infrastructure, while dependences ratio, industry sector’s ratio and unemployment rate have a significantly negative effect on local governments’ fiscal condition. In addition, the empirical results also found that the region effect was significant; it means that characteristics of countries were obviously and there were huge differences between countries in Taiwan.
In short, we recommended that local governments can improve their financial situation through the following ways: First, increasing the labor force; Second, promoting employment; Third, improving public construction.

並列關鍵字

fiscal indicators ； fiscal condition ； fiscal sound index ； local government

參考文獻

3. Badu, Y. A. and S. Y. Li (1994). Fiscal Stress in Local Government: A Case Study of the Tri-cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Review of Black Political Economy, 22(3), 5-17.

8. Cohen, S., Doumpos, M., Neofytou, E., and C. Zopounidis (2012). Assessing Financial Distress Where Bankruptcy Is Not An Option: An Alternative Approach for Local Municipalities. European Journal of Operational Research, 218(1), 270-279.

9. Dickey, D. A. and W. A. Fuller (1979). Distribution of the Estimators for Autoregressive Time Series With a Unit Root. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 74, 427-431.

10. García-Sánchez, I.-M., Cuadrado-Ballesteros, B., Frías-Aceituno, J.-V. and N. Mordan (2012). A New Predictor of Local Financial Distress. International Journal of Public Administration, 35(11), 739-748.

13. Honadle, B. W. (2003). The States’ Role in US Local Government Fiscal Crises: A Theoretical Model and Results of a National Survey. International Journal of Public Administration, 26(13), 1431–1472.