The Production of Flexibility in Local Governments and the Softening of Budgetary Constraints——An Analysis Based on Township-Owned Enterprises in Xixiang

As the terminal point of the national administrative system, township-level governments have exhibited pronounced characteristics of "incomplete finances" since their inception. The persistent, systemic imbalance between fiscal revenue capacity and expenditure responsibilities has driven these governments to continually seek ways to circumvent budgetary constraints and pursue institutional innovation. Against the backdrop of project-based funding and special bond systems, grassroots governments have achieved a softening of budgetary constraints by establishing township-affiliated state-owned enterprises. Township governments have fashioned these enterprises as the statutory entities to receive special bond funds and projects. By leveraging the dual nature of these enterprises, they perpetuate the administrative logic of resource allocation. Through project packaging, resource conversion, policy burden-sharing, and fund borrowing, they generate flexibility in their own fiscal resource allocation. This mechanism of "administrative borrowing through enterprises " represents grassroots governments' response to "incomplete finance " under new constraints, presenting a new form of budgetary constraint softening. However, it has also led to implicit consequences such as increased local debt and accumulated debt risks.