Abstract:

From the perspective of spatial spillover effects, we conduct a spatial econometric analysis on the panel data of 194 cities in China from 2004 to 2018. The purpose of our empirical test is to verify the existence of strategic interaction in education expenditures between local governments. Besides, the paper also aims at examining the intrinsic motivation and incentive mechanism of local government education expenditures. The results show that local governments have significant complementary strategic interactions with their geographical and demographic neighbors in education fiscal policy. Moreover, the education expenditures of local governments are significantly affected by economic basis, fiscal characteristics, institutional inertia and official promotion. We also found that governments in different regions have a heterogeneous feedback mechanism towards central budget. The governments in eastern region are more sensitive. Therefore, the education development plan of central government should take the spatial spillover effect and the regional heterogeneity into consideration. Only in this way can the plan better balance the allocation of educational resources and promote coordinated regional development.

Key words: local government, education fiscal policy, strategy interaction, spatial spillover effect