As a policy tool of income redistribution,fiscal expenditure cannot change the unfair primary distribution caused by trade openness.Moreover,the effect of trade openness on the scale of fiscal expenditure distorts its income redistribution effect.This paper’s empirical analysis shows as follows.(1)Both fiscal expenditure and trade openness expand income gap on the whole.(2)Whatever budget structure and expenditure category,fiscal expenditure cannot affect the scale of trade openness significantly,which means that fiscal expenditure cannot indirectly affect trade openness’income distribution effect through its scale.(3)Trade openness can reduce the scale of public finance expenditure and most categories’fiscal expenditure,which means that trade openness can indirectly affect fiscal expenditure’s income redistribution effect through its scale.Therefore,trade openness will limit and distort fiscal expenditure’s income redistribution effect.While improving the income distribution effect of fiscal expenditure,we should also recognize that this effect is limited.
