《County-level fiscal strait》.pdf

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at /1756-137X.htm CAER County-level fiscal strait 3,2 and resolutions in China Dan Luo 210 Development Research Center of the State Council, Beijing, People’s Republic of China, and Ronghua Ju College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China Abstract Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine China’s county-level fiscal difficulties. A large portion of China’s counties (county-level cities) have to run with the shortage of financial resources and huge government debt. To make a suitable policy to solve this problem is a top priority. Design/methodology/approach – Using the first-hand survey data, the paper compares nine sample counties whose economic development level is different, sums up the difficulties county-level governments are facing and explores countermeasures from qualitative and quantitative approaches. Findings – By studying the survey data of nine sample counties (cities), it is found that county-level finance is facing the following problems: low-level fiscal revenue, high debt risk and large gap of