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Political hierarchy and regional economic development: Evidence from a spatial discontinuity in China

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  • Jia, Junxue
  • Liang, Xuan
  • Ma, Guangrong

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of political hierarchy on regional economic development using evidence from Chongqing’s promotion to the level of a province in China. In 1997, the prefecture-level Chongqing city was elevated to a province-level municipality, splitting off from Sichuan province, and it consequently gained a substantial increase in decision-making power for administrative, personnel, and fiscal affairs. The border areas between Chongqing and Sichuan had similar characteristics prior to treatment, allowing us to adopt a spatial regression discontinuity approach. Examining growth in town-level light intensity from 1992–2013, we find that economic activities of Chongqing towns are parallel with Sichuan towns before treatment, but activities increase sharply immediately following Chongqing’s promotion, implying an increase of 1.8 percentage-points in the annual GDP growth rate. Furthermore, we find that government officials of Chongqing have higher accountability and enact more pro-growth policies than officials of Sichuan. The results provide new evidence that empowering local governments through increased political hierarchy promotes regional development.

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  • Jia, Junxue & Liang, Xuan & Ma, Guangrong, 2021. "Political hierarchy and regional economic development: Evidence from a spatial discontinuity in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:194:y:2021:i:c:s0047272720302164
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104352
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political hierarchy; Decentralization; Administrative unit proliferation; Economic growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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