This paper takes the perspective of fiscal decentralization among sub-provincial governments to examine the effect of Province-managing-county（PMC） reform on the income gap between urban and rural areas. Theoretically, PMC reform has increased local tax-sharing rate and inter-governmental transfers, which force local governments to face more intense horizontal competition, extending a “grabbing hand” to the rural areas, and choose a development strategy that favors capital-intensive industries. Those two logical approaches widen the income gap between urban and rural areas in the county. Empirically, the main findings are as follows. First, PMC reform has widened the income gap. Second, the effects of PMC reform vary in different regions. PMC reform has a positive impact on the gap between urban and rural areas in eastern and middle regions. But it has an opposite impact in minority, poverty and western regions. It has no impact in grain-producing counties and border counties. Third, the mechanism analysis shows that two channels of PMC reform are intense horizontal competition among counties and governmental development strategy that favors capital-intensive industries.

How to stimulate corporate performance is a crucial issue of general concern in all countries. This paper examines how China's Income Tax Revenue Sharing Reform in 2002 affects corporate financial performance. Unlike general tax policies that directly adjust the nominal tax rate or depreciation allowance, this reform indirectly affects the effective Enterprise Income Tax (EIT) rate by switching tax administration, thereby affecting corporate financial performance. We use a firm-level data-set from Annual Survey of Industrial Firms (ASIF), and test the impact by using a quasi-natural experimental design through regression discontinuity design (RDD). We find that after the reform, the effective EIT rate (ETR) of enterprises collected EIT by State Administration of Taxation (SAT) was 10% lower than that of enterprises collected EIT by the Local Administration of Taxation (LAT). If the ETR reduces by 1%, corporate financial performance, more specific, Return on Asset (ROA), increases by 1.7%. There are two available channels: increasing fixed asset investment (FAI), and alleviating external financial constraints. Additionally, the impact can be weakened for locally SOEs, large firms, firms with low SA index and those in less competitive industries.

How to stimulate enterprise investment is a dilemma facing most countries, and tax incentives are frequently used as a solution. This study explores how China's Income Tax Revenue Sharing Reform affected enterprises' fixed asset investment (FAI). This reform did not modify the nominal tax rate or depreciation allowance directly but changed the effective enterprise income tax (EIT) rate via switching tax administration indirectly. And the change in the effective EIT rate should affect firm investment. This paper uses a regression discontinuity (RD) design to conduct a quasi-natural experiment of the reform in 2002 based on an enterprise-level dataset from the Annual Survey of Industrial Enterprises (ASIE). After the reform, the effective EIT rate (ETR) of enterprises collected by the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) was 11% lower than that collected by the Local Administration of Taxation (LAT). FAI improves by 0.7% for every 1% decrease in ETR. Tax avoidance is a key channel for the ETR to affect FAI. The FAI of smaller companies, non-state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and companies with high size-age (SA) indexes has responded more significantly to the change in ETR brought about by reform.

党的十九大报告提出了“财力协调、区域均衡”的要求,本文尝试分析此要求下省以下政府间财政收入分配的两个原则,并构造了一个包含分税、支出责任划分和转移支付的理论模型,以为此提供理论基础.本文采用省级和地市级两套面板数据,逐级检验了我国省以下政府间一般公共预算收入和四个主要税种收入的分配实践是否总体上落实了两个原则.实证结果表明:(1)第一原则在各上级政府的一般公共预算收入分配中都得到了落实,但在四个主要税种收入分配的落实上存在差异;(2)第二原则在各上级政府的财政收入分配中均未得到落实;(3)两个原则的落实情况在东中西部三类地区之间存在差异.本文为我国省以下政府间财政收入分配改革提供了参考.