Fiscal consolidation is the major measure of government debt risk emergency management in most countries. It is trigged on the case that the debt risk level is over some standard or there is a debt default event. In 2016, China published its fiscal reconsolidation policy for local governments. Based on the “control rights”model, this paper puts forward four types of governance structures, and investigates the behavior and differences of grass-roots governments fiscal consolidation in different governance structures. By applying the multi-case study method of DSO paradigm, this paper studies four counties (districts) with excessive debt risk and finds that when the debt risk index exceeded the standard and needed to reduce, the county-level governments in the “highly-centralized” and “incentive association” governance structure adopted the measures specified in the policy, which belongs to "programmatic response". The county-level government, which is in the “administrative subcontract” and “loosely association” governance structure, worked with the municipal governments to find ways beyond the policies to have "flexible response". In addition, this paper finds that after the termination of fiscal consolidation, the debt burden ratio, land transfer yields and transfer payments obtained from municipal governments of some counties increased, indicating that the constraints of fiscal consolidation in China could not effectively control the debt risk and promote the sustainability of local finance. This study enriches the research on public finance management of local governments from the perspective of organization, and provides forwards valuable policy suggestions for improving debt risk control of China’s local governments.

财政重整是各国政府债务风险应急管理的主要措施,在债务风险超标或出现债务违约事件的情况下启动。2016年我国对地方政府推出了财政重整政策。本文基于 “控制权”模型提出了四种类型的治理结构,考察了在不同的治理结构下,我国基层政府的财政重整行为及其差异。应用DSO范式的多案例研究方法,对四个债务风险超标县 (区)的研究发现,当债务风险指标超标而需要降低时,处于高度关联型和激励关联型治理结构下的县级政府会采用政策规定的举措进行财政重整,属于 “程式性应对”。处于行政发包制和松散关联型治理结构下的县级政府,则会进行 “变通性应对”。此外,在财政重整终止后,部分县 (区)的债务负担率、土地出让金和从市级政府获得的转移支付规模不降反增,说明财政重整并未能有效控制地方债务风险和促进地方财政可持续性。本文丰富了组织学视角下的地方财政管理研究,也为完善我国地方政府债务风险管控提供了有价值的政策建议。