论民国时期的营业税税率与税负

营业税是民国时期从西方引进的一种现代税收制度,随国家政治与社会经济形势的变化而不断调整。作为税收制度的核心要素,民国时期营业税税率经历了从北洋政府时期的定额税率向南京政府时期的比例税率的转变。在南京国民政府的分税制体制下,地方营业税税率设计存在差别比例税率和单一比例税率两种模式。抗战和内战期间,国民政府逐步统一及大幅提高营业税税率以增加财政收入。营业税纳税人实际税负的增加是税率因素与非税率因素共同作用的结果。民国时期营业税在成为政府重要收入来源的同时,也给工商业经济和普通民众带来沉重的税收负担。     

LOCAL TAX BURDENS AND THE SUPPLY OF BUSINESS SITES IN SUBURBAN MUNICIPALITIES*

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of local household tax burdens and other community attributes on the supply of business sites made available by local municipalities. A model of community site supply is tested in which municipalities trade off increased fiscal benefits from business location and reductions in environmental quality that accompany industrial and commercial development. This tradeoff is embodied in municipal zoning decisions. Empirical analysis of industrial and commercial zoning in two rapidly growing suburban counties of the Philadelphia metropolitan area provides considerable support for the tenets of community site supply theory.     

SPATIAL ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE AND INTRA‐METROPOLITAN TAX COMPETITION

I investigate whether the spatial administrative structure of agglomerations is associated with local business tax rates in core cities of agglomerations. Using data for German municipalities, I define agglomerations based on distances and based on cumulative population densities. The results show that the population share of the core in its agglomeration is positively associated and the number of surrounding municipalities is negatively associated with the tax rate of the core. When municipalities consolidate, the core has the opportunity to increase the tax rate.     

唐宋地方监察体制变革初探

唐前期的地方监察体制由御史和诸道使臣组成,属于朝廷派出性质的单一型监察体制。安史之乱以后,伴随赋役制度的改革,出使郎官、转运使、巡院等新的监察体系出现,我国封建社会地方监察体制开始向固定型、多元化、多层面变革,宋代完成了这一变革。元、明、清各朝基本延续和发展了宋代多元化、多层面的地方监察体制。由此而论,唐宋地方监察体制变革是我国封建社会地方监察制度前后两期的分界线。     

民国时期地方税收权力的流失——以1939—1949年重庆营业税为中心的考察

抗战全面爆发以后,重庆由四川省辖市升级为院辖市,逐步建立起独立的地方财政税收制度。作为地方税收的大宗,营业税本是重庆市政府增加财政收入的重要途径,但是,重庆市营业税权力却遭到四川省政府、中央政府、重庆市商人团体和参议会的分割、侵蚀而流失。以营业税为主的地方税收权力大量流失,直接导致地方财政困乏,也是影响国家政权稳定的重要因素之一。     

DO LOCATION‐BASED TAX INCENTIVES ATTRACT NEW BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS?*

ABSTRACT This paper examines how offering tax incentives in a local area affects the entry of new business establishments. We use the federal Empowerment Zone (EZ) program as a natural experiment to test this relationship. Using instrumental variables estimation, we find that the EZ wage tax credit is responsible for attracting about 2.2 new establishments per 1,000 existing establishments, or a total of 20 new establishments in EZ areas. New establishment growth is strongest in the retail (about 40 new establishments) and service (about five new establishments) sectors, and offset by declines or slower growth in other industries.     

DECENTRALIZED TAX COMPETITION FOR BUSINESS CAPITAL AND NATIONAL ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY*

ABSTRACT For a nation composed of independent regions, the effects of local tax competition for business investments are examined. It is first shown that atomistic regional authorities tax only local resources to finance the provision of public services to business. Thus, an efficient interregional equilibrium is induced. Various political/institutional constraints are shown to cause misallocation of the capital stock and an inefficient provision of public services. The characterization of the inefficiency is shown to vary widely, depending upon the constraint under consideration.     

KNOWLEDGE MATTERS: THE LONG‐RUN DETERMINANTS OF STATE INCOME GROWTH*

ABSTRACT State per capita income differences narrowed considerably between 1939 and 1976. However, this convergence has been incomplete. We examined the sources of relative per capita income growth using an augmented growth model and a panel of the 48 contiguous states from 1939 to 2004. We explored the effect of tax burdens, public infrastructure, size of private financial markets, rates of business failure, industry structure, climate, educational attainment, and technology production. Our results show that a state's technology and its college attainment rates are the main factors that allow some state's per capita income to remain above those of other states.     

DO LOCATION‐BASED TAX INCENTIVES IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE AND QUALITY OF BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT?

We examine how location‐based tax incentives affect quality of life and business environment through changes in property values and equilibrium wages. Using the federal Empowerment Zone program, we determine whether offering tax incentives to firms improves the welfare of the citizens and attractiveness to firms. We demonstrate that quality of life methodologies can be applied using small geographically aggregated data, such as census block groups. We find that the tax incentives offered by the program notably enhances the quality of business environment for firms in the area while modestly improving the quality of life for the individuals living in the area.     

THE LONG-RUN ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF FEDERAL,STATE, AND LOCAL FISCAL POLICIES IN METROPOLITAN AREAS*

ABSTRACT. This paper uses new estimates of metropolitan factor demand and output supply functions to study how federal, state, and local fiscal policies affect metropolitan economies. We illustrate our work with findings for ten metropolitan areas in five states for changes in state corporate income taxes, local property taxes, the federal corporate income tax, an investment tax credit, interest rates, public capital stocks, output prices, and tax and regulatory policies affecting gross wages. It is clear from these simulations that a policy that is nominally the same everywhere will have repercussions that vary widely across regions and cities.     

HOW DO DIFFERENCES IN PROPERTY TAXES WITHIN CITIES AFFECT URBAN SPRAWL?*

ABSTRACT We develop a duocentric‐city model and show that the ratio between the property tax in the suburbs and in the center has an ambiguous impact on the size of the city. We test this model by using a dataset of effective property tax rates which we developed using GIS techniques for central cities and suburbs in 445 urbanized areas. Results from the empirical analyses suggest that a lower property tax rate in the suburbs as compared to the central city is associated with more expansive urban growth and a greater level of decentralization of population and employment.     

How green is the valley? Foreign direct investment in two Norwegian industrial towns

Since the early 1900s, foreign direct investments (FDIs) have greatly affected Norwegian society, especially peripheral communities. This article analyses how transnational corporations (TNCs) use territory down to the local level, and how this complex relationship between firms and spaces is shaped by attributes related to the TNC and the characteristics of the local economy. An extensive literature discusses different types of effects and spillovers, such as vertical supply linkages and spin-offs, but theoretical explanations of outcomes are more difficult. The literature links positive as well as negative outcomes to local conditions and to the investment motives of the entity making the FDI, but says little about how these vary with types of business, communities and national economies, and how these interactions generate different outcomes. We conclude that FDIs have different abilities to transform an area. We argue that FDI can trigger path-dependent dependency when it is dominated by economic capital and path-dependent development when it consists of a balance of economic capital, social networks and knowledge. This variation in the effects of FDI is illustrated by an empirical analysis of two industrial towns in Western Norway, one with natural resources and the other with intangible technology resources.     

PRICE UNCERTAINTY,FACTOR SUBSTITUTION,AND THE LOCATIONAL BIAS OF BUSINESS TAXES*

Consideration of the integrated production-location problem is extended to include several types of business taxes. Many of these taxes are technologically and spatially neutral under certainty, but are shown to be nonneutral when factor prices are stochastic and the firm is risk averse, even when the tax is spatially uniform. Consequently, even a nationally uniform tax can have regional biases and can encourage migration of plants. When factor prices are uncertain, the effects of taxes on output rates, input ratios, and plant location vary with the form of the tax imposed as well as the amount to be paid. Income taxes involve the taxing authority in sharing the risk with the firm and are shown to promote risk taking by the firm and induce the expansion of output. Locational incentives which are mutually beneficial to firms and the government are presented.     

A Bayesian Dynamic Spatio-Temporal Interaction Model: An Application to Prostate Cancer Incidence

During the past three decades, prostate cancer incidence has changed substantially in the United States. A fully Bayesian hierarchical spatio-temporal interaction model is proposed to estimate prostate cancer incidence rates in the state of Iowa. We introduce random spatial effects to capture the local dependence among regions, random temporal effects to explain the nonlinearity of rates over time, and random spatio-temporal interactions. In addition, we introduce fixed age effects because most epidemiologic data are strongly related to age. We find that prostate cancer incidence in Iowa counties increased sharply over age while incidence rates increased initially, then decreased over time. We identify hot spots of high and low rates for age groups and time periods using disease mapping.     

旅游产业集群的企业网络属性研究——以平遥古城为例

由于旅游产业的特殊性,旅游产业集群内旅游企业间关系和合作并不是建立在投入-产出的物质联系上,旅游产业集群的企业网络也就有不同于制造业集群的属性和特征。根据四种划分标准可以将旅游产业集群的企业网络分为四种不同的类型;根据对平遥古城的调查和利用社会网络分析方法对数据分析发现,以沟通联系和非正式合作为主要内容的非正式网络为主;位于网络中心位置的主要是旅游核心部门或具有一定行业地位的企业;旅游企业本地网络的范围和结网对象与地理空间及个人关系相关;旅游产业集群的企业网络具有本地化网络对集群创新和竞争力提升有重要影响。     

Geographical Education in Higher Institutions in China: a Personal Viewpoint

Editor's Note The following article was written by Chun-fen Lee, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Geography in the East China Normal University, Shanghai, during his tenure as a Fulbright scholar in the United States in 1980. Minor editing was done by Marie Sanderson, University of Windsor. Professor Lee has a special tie with Canada. He was a student of Griffith Taylor's, with whom he is shown in Figure 1, and in 1943 received the first PhD in geography awarded by the University of Toronto. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, geographical education in universities and colleges has made a great deal of progress: in the establishment of specialized geography departments, in the training of teachers and geographical workers (some 40,000 in all), and in the publication of geographical textbooks. These were the main accomplishments of Chinese geographers during this period 1949–81, but we also experienced setbacks and traversed a tortuous road. Long before liberation in 1949, the first department of geoscience in China was founded in 1919 in the Higher Normal College of Nanking (now the University of Nanking) with Dr Co-ching Chu, a climatologist from Harvard, president of the Geographical Society of China and vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as the head. There were then three sections in the department, of which geography was one. In the 1920s and 1930s several more geography departments were established. Until liberation, however, the departments were few and small, generally with a full-time faculty of fewer than 10 and an enrollment of some 20–50 students. Most of the graduates became teachers in the middle (or secondary) schools. After liberation, China entered a new stage of development in socialist revolution and socialist construction. By 1952 economic restoration was nearing completion and the first five-year plan was about to begin. In order to adapt to the needs of national construction, higher educational institutions underwent a nation-wide adjustment. Geography departments were classified into two categories: those in the comprehensive universities which concentrate on the training of specialized workers, and those in the normal colleges and normal universities, where teachers for the middle schools are trained. Only the geography departments of the two major normal universities (Peking Normal and East China Normal) do not fit this pattern. They might be regarded as an intermediate type of institution in which the functions of the comprehensive university and the normal college are combined. There are now about 35 departments of geography in China, most of them of a size that would have been undreamed of in the pre-liberation period. In each department there are about 100 to 300 geography majors and a faculty of 30 to 100, though most of the faculty members are assistants and instructors; there are rarely more than 20 professors and associate professors in a department. A number of the better equipped and stronger departments are now offering graduate programmes as well. Generally, it takes two to three years for the master's degree; the first one and a half to two years for course studies, including a foreign language, and the third for thesis work. Upon graduation, the more promising students are selected to proceed into doctoral programmes.     

DO CAPITAL TAX INCENTIVES ATTRACT NEW BUSINESSES? EVIDENCE ACROSS INDUSTRIES FROM THE NEW MARKETS TAX CREDIT

In this paper, we examine how government policy affects the sorting of industries across jurisdictions using the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program. When estimating the impact of the tax credit on business activity, there are likely to be unobservable local characteristics that are correlated with business location decisions that would cause OLS estimates to be biased. To control for this endogenous selection, we use a plausibly exogenous eligibility cutoff and compare census tracts that are just eligible for the NMTC program to those that are just ineligible. Using data from the Dun and Bradstreet MarketPlace Files, we find that eligibility for the NMTC program caused industries to sort across eligible and noneligible tracts. In particular, we find that there is an increase in retail employment, both among new businesses and existing businesses, and an increase in manufacturing employment at existing businesses in tracts that were eligible for the program. However, we find negative effects on employment at new firms in the wholesale and transportation industries, and decreases in the number of new firms in FIRE and services. Policy makers should be cognizant of these results, as the implications of the sorting across industries on local areas must be considered to design effective policy.     

LOCAL AMENITIES AND RENTS: TIEBOUT TAKES A VACATION*[link]

ABSTRACT This paper considers a two‐community model with free mobility, public expenditures set by majority voting, amenities that differ across communities, and two types of taxpayers sorting across communities according to different preferences. Residents pay local taxes, consume public services, and have the right to vote. Vacationers cannot vote, yet pay local taxes, and consume amenities. Amenities attract vacationers whose tax payments produce rents reducing the costs of public spending for permanent residents. These extractable rents produce stability in otherwise unstable equilibria. Relatively wealthy communities are generally less able than poor communities to extract rents.     

A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR SMALL BUSINESS POLICY

A number of public policy issues have been discussed in this article, the most important of which are: 1. Small business would not need special consideration if our economy were basically a competitive one. 2. A large and growing segment of our economy has sufficient market and political power to make our economy basically non-competitive. 3. Small firms tend to provide price competition, to lead in the development of new products and processes, and to generate new innovations and new employment. 4. Government policy tends to create artificial economies of scale, giving an unwarranted advantage to the very large firm. As a first approximation, a policy of government neutrality on firms of varying size is needed. But, because of discriminations which already exist which favor large firms over small firms, special small business programs may be necessary to provide an equitable policy base. Unfortunately, programs designed to benefit all business, like the investment tax credit, tend to primarily benefit larger firms (Berney, 1979). This is the case for two reasons. First, there is a basic difference in production relationships: large firms tend to be more capital intensive and small firms more labor intensive. Second, the more complex a rule or regulation, the more costly it is for small business to use it. Consequently, even the employment tax credit, which should benefit the small firm is not used by them. Instead, it tends more to benefit the larger firm. Neutrality, as a governmental policy, would appear to demand different treatment for firms of varying size. As an example, the “regulatory flexibility” concept applies different standards to different sized firms so that the burden of regulation is more equitably distributed. The concept of encouraging or requiring financial institutions and other lenders to establish “dual prime rates” is a further example. Since small firms appear to have much higher debt to equity ratios and rely more heavily on shorter-term bank credit, they are more heavily burdened by a tight money policy which forces increases of interest rates. Thus, dual prime rates help to spread the burden of rising interest costs more equally. As many people prefer to work for themselves, equalizing the burden of government policy could only serve to increase the basic growth rate for small business, thus providing an easier start for entrepreneurs and would encourage a more rapid rate of economic growth. None of these discussions, however, argues that small business should be protected from failure. The more efficient firms will succeed and prosper, and the least efficient will not. Many currently successful entrepreneurs learn how to improve their production processes or managerial skills from their failures. What is being recommended as a first step is that government should concentrate on equalizing burdens and benefits in order to achieve true neutrality. If private economies of scale do indeed exist, new firms must grow to survive; what the government should not create are artificial economies of scale with public policy. A strong argument for further action can also be made: it appears that significant external benefits are produced by an economic system with a dynamic small business sector. Since these benefits go to society as a whole rather than entrepreneurs alone in the form of increased profits, a freely operating market without government assistance does not generate as many new small businesses as would be optimal for our society. To internalize the benefits that come from small business, governmental programs need to be devised to increase the rate of return on new, innovative small businesses. Should this happen, we could then anticipate increased rapid rates of innovation and technological change, more rapid rates of employment growth, expanded price competition in all sectors of the economy, and improved export capabilities, in short, true flexibility in our capitalistic system.     

Employment Dynamics on Business Estates

The central question of this paper is: “What is the magnitude of different forms of employment dynamics on business estates in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2005 and to what extent are the employment dynamics on business estates different from employment dynamics in general?” In order to answer this question, we examine three kinds of local employment dynamics: (1) entries and exits, (2) inter-municipal relocation and (3) the growth/decline of existing firms. We find that new firm formation and inter-municipal relocation do not lead to employment growth on business estates. However, the in situ employment growth on business estates is higher than the general employment growth in the Netherlands. Therefore, it can be concluded that business estates play an important role in local employment dynamics by facilitating the growth of incumbent firms.