The Coparticipación System
共同参与税体制
Coparticipación federal — the federal tax-sharing formula — is Argentina's most politically durable and technically dysfunctional institution. Established in its current form by Law 23.548 in 1988, it determines how the national government distributes approximately 55–60% of all federal tax revenues (primarily IVA, income tax, and internal taxes) among the 23 provinces and the City of Buenos Aires. The formula has not been legally reformed since 1988 despite the Constitution of 1994 explicitly mandating that Congress pass a new coparticipación law. As of 2026, that law has never materialized — the nearest thing to a genuine constitutional mandate treated as a dead letter in Argentine institutional history.
联邦共同参与税——联邦税收分享公式——是阿根廷政治上最持久、技术上最功能失调的制度。以1988年23.548号法律的当前形式确立，它决定了中央政府如何在23个省和布宜诺斯艾利斯市之间分配约55-60%的所有联邦税收（主要是增值税、所得税和内部税）。1994年宪法明确要求国会通过新的共同参与法，但该公式自1988年以来在法律上从未被改革。截至2026年，该法律从未实现——这是阿根廷制度史上最接近真正宪法授权却被当作死文字处理的事例。
The formula distributes funds along two dimensions: a "primary" split between the national treasury (which retains approximately 42%) and the provinces collectively, and a "secondary" distribution among the provinces according to a formula that mixes population (45%), geographic size (10%), population density inverse (10%), and a "developmental gap" index (25%). The result is systematically redistributive in ways that bear no relationship to any economic objective: provinces that generate the most tax revenue receive the least per capita, and provinces that generate almost no revenue receive the most per capita.
该公式沿两个维度分配资金：中央国库（保留约42%）与各省之间的"初级"分割，以及按照混合人口（45%）、地理面积（10%）、人口密度倒数（10%）和"发展差距"指数（25%）的公式在各省之间的"二级"分配。结果是系统性再分配，与任何经济目标都没有关系：产生最多税收的省份获得的人均资金最少，而产生几乎没有收入的省份获得的人均资金最多。
The Senate as Coparticipación's Guardian
参议院作为共同参与税的守护者
The structural lock of the coparticipación system cannot be understood without understanding Argentina's Senate. Each of Argentina's 23 provinces and the City of Buenos Aires elects 3 senators, regardless of population. This produces a systematic malapportionment that rivals the United States Senate in its distortionary effect: Formosa province (population ~600,000) has identical Senate weight to Buenos Aires province (population ~17 million). The 14 least-populated provinces together hold 42 Senate seats and contain approximately 12% of Argentina's population. These same 14 provinces are, without exception, net fiscal recipients — they receive more from coparticipación than they contribute in federal taxes.
如果不理解阿根廷参议院，就无法理解共同参与税体制的结构性锁定。阿根廷23个省和布宜诺斯艾利斯市各自选举3名参议员，不考虑人口。这产生了系统性的席位失配，其扭曲效果堪比美国参议院：福尔莫萨省（人口约60万）与布宜诺斯艾利斯省（人口约1700万）的参议院权重相同。14个人口最少的省份共持有42个参议院席位，拥有阿根廷约12%的人口。这14个省无一例外都是净财政受益者——它们从共同参与税中获得的比它们贡献的联邦税收更多。
The result is a constitutionally embedded veto coalition for the status quo. Any national government that attempts to reform coparticipación — either to redirect transfers toward economic efficiency criteria, or to cut total transfer volumes as part of fiscal adjustment — must confront senators who represent provinces that would be destroyed by such a reform. No senator from Formosa, La Rioja, or Santiago del Estero has ever voted for coparticipación reform, because such a reform would eliminate the fiscal transfers that fund the state employment that is the only significant economic activity in their provinces. This is rational behavior by provincial power holders responding to the structural incentives the system creates.
结果是宪法嵌入的现状否决联盟。任何试图改革共同参与税的中央政府——无论是将转移支付重定向为经济效率标准，还是作为财政调整的一部分削减总转移量——都必须面对代表会被这种改革摧毁的省份的参议员。来自福尔莫萨、拉里奥哈或圣地亚哥-德尔埃斯特罗的参议员从未投票支持共同参与税改革，因为这种改革将消除为国家就业提供资金的财政转移——而国家就业是其省份唯一重要的经济活动。这是省级权力持有者对系统创造的结构性激励做出的理性反应。
"The Argentine interior is not underdeveloped. It is the negative image of Buenos Aires — defined by what it lacks, sustained by what Buenos Aires sends — and it has organized its entire political existence around ensuring that Buenos Aires keeps sending it."
"阿根廷内陆地区并非欠发达。它是布宜诺斯艾利斯的负像——以其所缺乏的为定义，以布宜诺斯艾利斯所输送的为维系——并将其全部政治生存组织为确保布宜诺斯艾利斯继续输送资源。"
After Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, Radiografía de la Pampa (1933) — on the Buenos Aires–interior fracture as the structural wound of Argentine civilization 基于埃塞基尔·马丁内斯·埃斯特拉达，《潘帕斯》（1933）——关于布宜诺斯艾利斯与内陆的裂痕作为阿根廷文明的结构性伤口The Province Typology
省份类型学
Understanding the structural stakes requires mapping the provinces into functional categories. The political economy of Argentine federalism is not primarily about 24 equal territorial units. It is about the structural relationship between a small group of net fiscal contributors, a large group of net fiscal recipients, and one anomalous case — Buenos Aires province — that is large enough to be existentially important to the national government but receives less per capita from coparticipación than its economic weight warrants.
理解结构性利益需要将各省划分为功能类别。阿根廷联邦制的政治经济主要不是关于24个平等的领土单位。它是关于少数净财政贡献者、大量净财政受益者，以及一个异常案例——布宜诺斯艾利斯省——之间的结构关系。布宜诺斯艾利斯省足够大，对中央政府具有存亡重要性，但从共同参与税中获得的人均资金少于其经济权重所应获得的数量。
The structural grievance of Buenos Aires province is genuine and permanent: it generates disproportionate tax revenue, receives a lower per-capita transfer than poor provinces, and must finance provincial services for 17 million people — including the Greater Buenos Aires suburbs (Conurbano Bonaerense) which contain some of the densest concentrations of urban poverty on the continent. No Buenos Aires province governor has ever failed to complain about coparticipación. None has succeeded in reforming it.
布宜诺斯艾利斯省的结构性怨恨是真实且永久的：它产生过多的税收，获得的人均转移支付低于贫困省份，必须为1700万人提供省级服务资金——包括大布宜诺斯艾利斯郊区（Conurbano Bonaerense），那里集中了大陆上最密集的城市贫困人口。没有一位布宜诺斯艾利斯省省长不抱怨共同参与税。没有一位成功改革了它。
The Buenos Aires City coparticipación conflict is a microcosm of the entire national dynamic: a Peronist national government (Alberto Fernández in 2020) unilaterally cut CABA's coparticipación share from 3.75% to 2.32% as political punishment for CABA being governed by the opposition (Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, PRO). The Supreme Court ruled the cut unconstitutional. The federal government ignored the ruling. Milei reversed the cut by DNU on day one. The episode illustrates that coparticipación is not a stable legal-technical system; it is a political instrument that moves with national political alignments.
布宜诺斯艾利斯市共同参与税冲突是整个全国动态的缩影：庇隆主义中央政府（2020年的阿尔韦托·费尔南德斯）单方面将CABA的共同参与税份额从3.75%削减到2.32%，作为对反对党执政的CABA（奥拉西奥·罗德里格斯·拉雷塔，PRO党）的政治惩罚。最高法院裁定该削减违宪。联邦政府忽视了裁决。米莱在第一天通过DNU逆转了削减。这一事件说明，共同参与税不是稳定的法律技术体系；它是随全国政治排列移动的政治工具。
Formosa is the anatomically cleanest example of the "feudal province" model. Insfrán has governed for three decades through a tight system: federal transfers fund provincial employment, provincial employment funds political loyalty, political loyalty funds Senate votes that protect federal transfers. The circle is self-reinforcing and has no natural limit. Insfrán has been re-elected continuously because the population's economic survival is structurally dependent on the state he controls. National governments of any stripe — Kirchnerist, Macrista, now Milei — must negotiate with Insfrán because his Senate votes are the price of legislative access. He is not a local curiosity. He is a structural feature of Argentine national politics.
福尔摩萨是"封建省份"模型在解剖学上最清晰的例证。因斯弗兰通过紧密系统执政三十年：联邦转移支付为省级就业提供资金，省级就业为政治忠诚提供资金，政治忠诚为保护联邦转移支付的参议院投票提供资金。这个循环是自我强化的，没有自然终止。因斯弗兰持续当选，因为人口的经济生存在结构上依赖于他控制的国家。任何政治倾向的中央政府——基什内尔主义、马克里主义、现在的米莱——都必须与因斯弗兰谈判，因为他的参议院投票是立法准入的价格。他不是地方奇景。他是阿根廷全国政治的结构性特征。
La Rioja illustrates that fiscal dependency and national power are not incompatible. Menem — a Riojan product — became national president and implemented Argentina's deepest structural reforms while maintaining his home province in a state of fiscal dependency that provided his political base. Santiago del Estero's Zamora family machine demonstrates that the dynastic model persists regardless of national political cycles: Claude Zamora succeeded his father Gerardo without any effective democratic disruption to the provincial power structure.
拉里奥哈说明财政依赖与国家权力并不不相容。梅内姆——一个里奥哈人——成为国家总统，实施了阿根廷最深层的结构性改革，同时维持其家乡省份处于为其政治基础提供依托的财政依赖状态。圣地亚哥-德尔埃斯特罗的萨莫拉家族机器表明，王朝模式无论全国政治周期如何都会持续：克劳迪奥·萨莫拉继承父亲赫拉尔多，没有任何有效的民主中断改变省级权力结构。
Córdoba is structurally the most important counterweight province in Argentina. It has elected non-Peronist governors continuously since 1999 (Unión por Córdoba, politically independent) and has served as the base for multiple national opposition campaigns. The soy complex of Córdoba and Santa Fe — the Pampas heartland — is the primary driver of Argentine export revenues, which means these provinces generate the dollars that the federal fiscal system redistributes away from them toward the fiscal dependent north. This is the structural resentment underlying Milei's election-winning geography: Córdoba voted for Milei by some of the largest margins of any province.
科尔多瓦在结构上是阿根廷最重要的制衡省份。自1999年以来（科尔多瓦联盟，政治独立）持续选举非庇隆主义省长，并作为多次全国反对派竞选的基地。科尔多瓦和圣菲的大豆综合体——潘帕斯腹地——是阿根廷出口收入的主要驱动力，这意味着这些省份产生的美元被联邦财政体系从它们那里再分配到财政依赖的北部。这是米莱选举获胜地理背后的结构性怨恨：科尔多瓦以一些省份中最大的差距投票支持米莱。
The Patagonian energy provinces occupy a unique position in the federalism story: they are not fiscally dependent and do not need coparticipación flows to function. But they hold structural leverage over any national government that wants to develop Vaca Muerta at scale. Investment in Vaca Muerta requires provincial cooperation on royalty rates, environmental permitting, and labor contracts. Neuquén governor Jorge Gutiérrez has skillfully extracted concessions from Milei's energy opening in exchange for political support on other agenda items. The energy provinces demonstrate that fiscal dependency is not the only form of provincial power — resource control is another.
巴塔哥尼亚能源省份在联邦制故事中占据独特位置：它们不在财政上依赖，也不需要共同参与税流来维持运转。但它们对任何想要大规模开发瓦卡穆埃尔塔的中央政府保有结构性影响力。对瓦卡穆埃尔塔的投资需要省级在特许权费率、环境许可和劳工合同方面的合作。内乌肯省长豪尔赫·古铁雷斯巧妙地从米莱的能源开放中提取了让步，换取在其他议程项目上的政治支持。能源省份表明，财政依赖不是省级权力的唯一形式——资源控制是另一种。
The Mechanism: How Coparticipación Blocks Reform
机制：共同参与税如何阻止改革
The coparticipación system is not merely inequitable. It is structurally self-reproducing — every government that has attempted reform has discovered the same mechanism by which the system protects itself.
共同参与税体制不仅仅是不公平的。它在结构上是自我复制的——每个试图改革的政府都发现了同样的体制保护自身的机制。
Provincial governors of fiscal-dependent provinces have no private sector to generate employment. The provincial state is the economy. Any reduction in coparticipación transfers means unemployment, which means political loss. The governor's survival interest is perfectly aligned with defending transfer volumes — regardless of any efficiency or equity argument.
财政依赖省份的省长没有可以产生就业的私营部门。省级国家就是经济体。共同参与税转移的任何减少都意味着失业，这意味着政治损失。省长的生存利益与维护转移量完全一致——无论任何效率或公平论据如何。
The 14 smallest (and most fiscally dependent) provinces hold 42 Senate seats representing ~12% of the population. They have an automatic blocking majority over any reform that would reduce their transfers. No coparticipación reform bill has ever reached the Senate floor with enough votes to pass since 1988.
14个最小（且最依赖财政）的省份拥有42个参议院席位，代表约12%的人口。他们对任何会减少其转移支付的改革拥有自动否决多数。自1988年以来，没有共同参与税改革法案以足够票数进入参议院全体会议。
Even Milei — who campaigned on fiscal reform and provincial dependency reduction — has incorporated provincial governor support into his legislative coalition. The governors of Tucumán, Salta, and several Peronist provinces voted for key elements of Milei's Ley de Bases in exchange for informal guarantees about transfer continuity. The fiscal reformer needs the fiscal dependents to pass anything at all.
即使是米莱——他以财政改革和减少省级依赖为竞选纲领——也将省级省长支持纳入其立法联盟。图库曼、萨尔塔和几个庇隆主义省份的省长投票支持米莱"基础法"的关键要素，以换取关于转移连续性的非正式保证。财政改革者需要财政依赖者来通过任何立法。
Even when Peronism is in national opposition, it maintains effective Senate control through the senators of provincial machines. These senators' loyalty is to coparticipación above any national Peronist figure — CFK discovered this when she attempted to reform Buenos Aires province's share in 2020 and created enemies within her own coalition. The provincial barons are the structural bedrock of Peronist Senate power regardless of who leads the national movement.
即使庇隆主义处于全国反对党地位，它也通过省级机器的参议员维持有效的参议院控制。这些参议员的忠诚高于任何全国庇隆主义人物——克里斯蒂娜在2020年试图改革布宜诺斯艾利斯省的份额时发现了这一点，并在其自己的联盟内树立了敌人。省级诸侯是庇隆主义参议院权力的结构基础，无论谁领导全国运动。
Buenos Aires Province: The Key Structural Tension
布宜诺斯艾利斯省：核心结构张力
Buenos Aires province is the paradox at the heart of Argentine federal politics. It is simultaneously the most electorally decisive province (its 17 million voters determine most national elections), the most fiscally aggrieved by the coparticipación formula, and — because it contains the Conurbano Bonaerense — the social crisis epicenter that requires the most state intervention. Every national government must manage the permanent fiscal tension between what Buenos Aires province contributes (40% of GDP, corresponding tax revenues) and what it receives from coparticipación (approximately 22% of transfers), because Buenos Aires's governor controls a political machine that can make or break a national presidency.
布宜诺斯艾利斯省是阿根廷联邦政治核心的悖论。它同时是选举上最决定性的省份（其1700万选民决定大多数全国选举结果），受共同参与税公式伤害最深的省份，以及——因为它包含科诺尔班诺（Conurbano Bonaerense）——需要最多国家干预的社会危机震中。每届中央政府都必须管理布宜诺斯艾利斯省贡献的（GDP的40%，相应税收）与从共同参与税获得的（约22%的转移支付）之间的永久性财政张力，因为布宜诺斯艾利斯的省长控制着一个可以成就或摧毁全国总统任期的政治机器。
The Conurbano Bonaerense — the 24 municipalities immediately surrounding the City of Buenos Aires in the province — is the structural core of this problem. These municipalities contain over 10 million people in conditions that range from lower-middle class to extreme poverty, concentrated in informal settlements (villas miseria) that generate chronic demand for provincial social services. The province's fiscal constraint — receiving fewer per-capita transfers than its tax contribution warrants — means it perpetually under-funds the Conurbano. The under-funded Conurbano is the primary electoral base of Peronist populism: its social crisis generates the political demand for the expanded state spending that produces the fiscal deficits that produce the inflation that makes everyone poorer. This is the political economy of the stop-go cycle at the provincial level.
科诺尔班诺博纳伦塞——紧邻省内布宜诺斯艾利斯市的24个市镇——是这个问题的结构核心。这些市镇拥有超过1000万人，状况从中下层到极端贫困不等，集中在产生对省级社会服务慢性需求的非正式定居点（贫民窟/villas miseria）中。该省的财政约束——收到的人均转移支付少于其税收贡献应得的——意味着它永久性地对科诺尔班诺资金不足。资金不足的科诺尔班诺是庇隆主义民粹主义的主要选举基础：其社会危机产生对国家扩大支出的政治需求，这产生了制造通胀的财政赤字，使每个人都更贫穷。这是省级层面停滞-增长循环的政治经济学。
Argentine vs. Brazilian Federalism: A Comparative Note
阿根廷与巴西的联邦制：比较说明
| Dimension | Argentina | Brazil | 维度 | 阿根廷 | 巴西 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of units | 23 provinces + CABA | 26 states + Federal District | 单位数量 | 23个省+CABA | 26个州+联邦区 |
| Senate malapportionment | Severe — 3 senators per province regardless of population | Severe — 3 senators per state regardless of population | 参议院代表失配 | 严重——每省3名参议员，不考虑人口 | 严重——每州3名参议员，不考虑人口 |
| Transfer mechanism | Coparticipación (formula-based, opaque, politically frozen) | FPM/ICMS/FPE — multiple instruments, more dynamic but equally contested | 转移机制 | 共同参与税（基于公式，不透明，政治冻结） | FPM/ICMS/FPE——多种工具，更动态但同样存在争议 |
| Reform since 1990 | None — constitutional mandate for reform exists since 1994, has never been fulfilled | Multiple partial reforms — Real Plan, Lula fiscal compacts — but core malapportionment unchanged | 1990年以来的改革 | 无——1994年以来宪法授权改革，从未实现 | 多次部分改革——真实计划、卢拉财政契约——但核心代表失配未变 |
| Fiscal dependency depth | Extreme in northern provinces (80–90% transfer dependency) | Extreme in northeastern states (Maranhão, Piauí — comparable transfer dependency) | 财政依赖深度 | 北部省份极端（80-90%转移依赖） | 东北部州极端（马拉尼昂、皮奥伊——可比的转移依赖） |
| Key structural difference | Argentina's coparticipación is a single monolithic formula — harder to reform than Brazil's multi-instrument system | Brazil's FPM/ICMS complexity allows partial reforms at the margins; Argentina's formula is binary: change everything or change nothing | 关键结构差异 | 阿根廷的共同参与税是单一整体公式——比巴西的多工具体系更难改革 | 巴西FPM/ICMS的复杂性允许在边际进行部分改革；阿根廷公式是二元的：要么改变一切，要么什么都不改变 |
Federal Transfer Dependency by Province
各省联邦转移支付依赖度
The northernmost provinces — Formosa, Santiago del Estero, Chaco — generate almost nothing of their own revenue. They exist fiscally as federal dependencies, with Buenos Aires and CABA quietly funding them through coparticipación. Each of these provinces still sends 3 senators to the upper chamber, equal to Buenos Aires Province with 17 million people.
最北部省份——福尔摩沙、圣地亚哥-德尔-埃斯特罗、查科——几乎不产生任何自有收入。它们在财政上作为联邦依附省份存在，布宜诺斯艾利斯和CABA通过共同参与税悄悄资助它们。这些省份各自仍向参议院派驻3名参议员，与拥有1700万人口的布宜诺斯艾利斯省相同。
Most Argentine Provinces Cannot Function Without Federal Transfers
大多数阿根廷省份若无联邦转移支付则无法运作
Federal transfer revenues as % of total provincial revenues · Average 2022–2024 · Red bar = >80% dependency · Dashed line = 50% threshold (federal transfers become primary revenue source)
联邦转移支付收入占省级总收入的百分比 · 2022–2024年平均值 · 红色条 = 超过80%依赖度 · 虚线 = 50%阈值（联邦转移支付成为主要收入来源）
Sources: Ministerio de Economía Argentina; IARAF; own calculation. Formosa annotation: 3 senators represent ~600K people; Buenos Aires Province: 3 senators represent ~17M people.
来源：阿根廷经济部；IARAF；自行计算。福尔摩沙标注：3名参议员代表约60万人；布宜诺斯艾利斯省：3名参议员代表约1700万人。
Structural verdict. Argentine federalism is institutionally the most dysfunctional aspect of Argentine political economy — more dysfunctional even than the monetary system, because the monetary system at least theoretically responds to interest rate and exchange rate instruments. Coparticipación has no adjustment mechanism at all. It is locked by a constitutional requirement for a new law that no Congress has been willing or able to pass, and defended by a Senate whose malapportionment gives controlling votes to the provinces with the strongest interest in maintaining the status quo. The result is a federal system that systematically prevents fiscal reform, maintains provincial power machines that fuel Peronist Senate dominance, and allocates the country's public resources away from its most productive regions and populations. Every government since 1988 has promised coparticipación reform. None has delivered. This is not political failure. It is the system working exactly as its beneficiaries designed it to work.
结构性评判。阿根廷联邦制在制度上是阿根廷政治经济中功能最失调的方面——甚至比货币体系更失调，因为货币体系至少在理论上对利率和汇率工具有所回应。共同参与税根本没有调整机制。它被一项新法律的宪法要求所锁定——没有国会愿意或能够通过这样的法律，并由参议院捍卫——参议院的代表失配给了对维持现状有最强烈利益的省份以控制票。结果是一个联邦体系，系统性地阻止财政改革，维持助推庇隆主义参议院主导的省级权力机器，并将该国的公共资源从其最具生产力的地区和人口那里转移。自1988年以来的每届政府都承诺共同参与税改革。没有一届兑现。这不是政治失败。这是系统完全按照其受益者设计的方式运作。