地方政府財政赤字對公共服務水準與地價之影響

The effects of local government deficits on public services and land prices

由於近年來地方政府之財政赤字有擴張趨勢，且過去文獻對於赤字的探討多以政府為主體，而對於赤字的影響亦多著重在總體經濟層面，而少有涉及地方層級者。本文遂延伸Ackerman（1979）之模型，於放鬆地方政府預算必須平衡的假設後，藉以探討地方政府之財政赤字對於地方之公共服務水準與地價的影響，並期望藉此提供此類理論之個體經濟基礎。本文以台灣地區民國81年至86年間，21縣市之相關資料進行實證研究後發現，地方政府之財政赤字對於公共服務水準與地價均有顯著的負向影響。此一結果如同本文理論所探討的，當地區居民對於公共服務水準的邊際效用遞減得太快時，財政赤字的增加並不會提高公共服務水準，其對地價的影響亦不定。 Most studies related government deficits only consider the behaviors of governments. And most of those papers analyze the effects of deficits on macroeconomic variables, few in local economy. In this paper we extend the model of Ackerman (1979) by releasing the assumption that the budget of local government should be balanced, to examine the effects of local government deficits on public services and land prices, and to develop the microeconomic foundations of it. The empirical study in Taiwan indicates that there is a negative, statistically significant relationship between local government deficits and public services and land prices. The results suggest consistently as the theory derived that deficits will not increase public services when the residents' marginal utility of public services decreasing too much. At the same time, the effects on land prices will be ambiguous.