| 曹文成,任晓姝.零基预算改革与企业投资效率——基于有为政府赋能有效市场的视角[J].数量经济技术经济研究,2026,(3):29-53 | | 零基预算改革与企业投资效率——基于有为政府赋能有效市场的视角 | | Zero-based Budgeting Reform and Corporate Investment Efficiency: From the Perspective of an Active Government Empowering an Efficient Market | | | | DOI： | | 中文关键词: 零基预算改革 企业投资效率 制度性交易成本 融资环境 不确定性预期 | | 英文关键词: Zero-based Budgeting Reform Corporate Investment Efficiency Institutional Transaction Costs Financing Environment Expectations of Market Uncertainty | | 基金项目: | | | 中文摘要: | | 深化零基预算改革是打破既有财政资金分配格局，提高资金使用和预算执行效率的重要举措，对于强化财政逆周期调节政策的有效性具有突破性意义。本文将零基预算改革作为一项准自然实验，采用交叠双重差分模型系统探究零基预算改革对企业投资效率的影响及其作用机制。实证结果表明，零基预算改革带来的政府部门整体财政支出效率提升，显著提高了企业投资效率。作用机制检验表明，零基预算改革提升企业投资效率的核心逻辑在于降低企业面临的制度性交易成本、改善企业融资环境和降低企业的市场不确定性预期。进一步研究发现，零基预算改革不仅抑制了企业的过度投资，还缓解了企业的投资不足。此外，零基预算改革通过提升投资效率促进了企业价值提升。本文从企业投资效率视角为零基预算改革的微观有效性提供了经验证据，对于新时期全面实施零基预算改革以推动财政资金使用提质增效和实现经济高质量发展具有重要的启示意义。 | | 英文摘要: | | Enhancing corporate investment efficiency is critical to achieving optimal resource allocation and sustainable development and has long been a focal concern for both policymakers and scholars. Higher investment efficiency not only implies that firms allocate scarce capital more precisely toward high-return and sustainable projects but also affects the macro-level upgrading of the supply structure and enhances total factor productivity. Unlike the conventional “baseline-plus-growth” budgeting inertia, the zero-based budgeting (ZBB) reform releases fiscal resource allocation from historical spending paths and emphasizes a performance- and necessity-oriented logic, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of public spending and improving the efficiency of fiscal fund utilization. This reform is pivotal for strengthening the macro-regulatory capacity of fiscal policy, improving government governance effectiveness, and invigorating market participants. In recent years, China has rolled out ZBB reform in a staggered manner across provinces, leading to institutional change that varies both over time and across regions and providing a clean and identifiable policy setting for examining how budget management reforms shape corporate behavior.We treat the staggered implementation of ZBB reform across provinces as a quasi-natural experiment and employ a staggered difference-in-differences design to systematically assess its impact on corporate investment efficiency and the underlying mechanisms. The results indicate that ZBB reform significantly improves corporate investment efficiency. This finding remains robust after controlling for a broad set of potential confounders using alternative measures, adjusting the sample period, and conducting a number of robustness checks, thereby underscoring the stability of the estimated effect.Heterogeneity analyses further indicate that the reform effect is more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises and firms facing lighter non-tax burdens, implying that improvements in fiscal resource allocation generate stronger incentives and discipline for more market-oriented entities. Moreover, the efficiency gains are larger in regions with greater fiscal pressure and higher levels of marketization, implying that tighter local fiscal constraints and high-quality institutional environments jointly strengthen the governance and transmission effects of the reform.We further explore the channels through which ZBB reform affects corporate investment efficiency. The study reveals that the ZBB reform primarily operates by reducing firms’ institutional transaction costs, improving the financing environment, and alleviating expectations of market uncertainty, thereby enhancing investment efficiency. We also examine the direction of the efficiency improvement and find that the reform not only effectively curbs overinvestment but also helps mitigate underinvestment, highlighting a two-sided correction of resource misallocation. Additional analyses reveal that by improving investment efficiency, ZBB reform increases firm value, indicating that its effects extend beyond more efficient investment on the input side and translate into high-quality development outcomes.This study provides empirical evidence on the micro-level effectiveness of ZBB reform from the perspective of corporate investment efficiency and deepens our understanding of the linkage between budget management reforms and corporate financial behavior. The findings yield important policy implications for improving the efficiency of fiscal fund utilization, optimizing the business environment, and promoting high-quality economic development. Policymakers should build on existing pilot experiences and steadily expand ZBB reform in both scope and depth, strengthen performance evaluation and budget discipline, reduce path dependence in fiscal resource allocation, and continuously enhance institutional supply and the market environment to bolster firms’ investment confidence and allocation efficiency. Future research may further explore heterogeneous effects across specific corporate governance characteristics and interactions with regional institutional environments. Incorporating more granular measures of fiscal expenditure composition and policy implementation intensity would further enrich the theoretical dialogue and the policy evaluation framework linking ZBB reform to corporate investment behavior. | | 查看全文 相关附件： 下载数据代码附录 |
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