Research on the Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations of China in the Past 70 Years: Fiscal Decentralization in Evolution

Abstract

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese scholars of finance theory have been sparing no effort on the theoretical research of intergovernmental fiscal relations in the past 70 years, with fiscal decentralization at the core. Although fiscal decentralization has a long history, the intergovernmental fiscal relations which use fiscal decentralization as the vehicle did not constitute an independent research topic in the early days of the People’s Republic of China. Later, fiscal decentralization was adopted and gradually flourished in China, once systematically explained as the target mode of intergovernmental fiscal relations, and even took the form of tax sharing system. In the new era of socialism with Chinses characteristics, the booming research on intergovernmental fiscal relations, adapted to the theoretical innovation of modern fiscal system, has contributed to coping with the changes of international and domestic economic situation in the new normal and to the sustainable fiscal development of China.