公共财政、民主财政与经济危机——一个公共经济学视角的分析

由于近年来金融危机的影响,政府的政策与作用再次引起了经济学家们的广泛关注；然而,大多数学者只是关注政策本身,而很少有人对政策制定机制进行分析.事实上,公共财政需求结构的变化决定了人们对财政运行机制的选择,从而引发了民主与宪政机制的轮回反复.在发达国家的财政体制中,宪政主要满足市场经济发展对公共产品的需求,而民主则主要服务于弱势群体对生存保障公共品的需求.于是,发达国家在两个貌合神离的机制之间的摇摆导致了经济危机的频频发生,也误导了发展中国家的追赶路径选择.

Public Finance,Substitute Finance and Economic Crisis

The role of government and its policy in economic development draw lots of attentions of economists again in virtue of the finance crisis in USA.However,the process and mechanism of policy-making is still overlooked by most of them.In fact,the structure of public goods demand determines the choice of the mechanism of public finance,and results in the balance between democracy and constitution.In the case of developed economies,the demand of market economic development on public goods is met by constitutional polity;the demand of poor’s survival on public goods is met by democratic polity.Then,the sway of these two kinds of mechanisms of public finance contributes to the frequent economic crisis in developed countries and the failure of catching-up in developing countries.