【主讲】席天扬 (CCER,Peking University)
【主题】Internal Conflicts and Endogenous Bureaucratic Selection: Evidence from the late Imperial China
【时间】2016年4月15日 (周五) 10：00-11：30
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼710室
【语言】英文
【摘要】The recent literature on state and bureaucracy holds that merit-based selection of bureaucrats is often impeded by the concern about loyalty, the preference to appoint agents that share the same partisan, ethnic, or ideological identities with political principals. This paper argues that the importance being attached to agents' group identities in bureaucratic selection is endogenously determined by how the interaction between agents' competence and loyalty affects the principal's prospect of political survival. We empirically examine the patterns of sanctions, promotions, and appointments for governors and governors general in the Qing dynasty of China (1644-1911) as a case in point. The Qing rulers relied on an ethnicity-based patronage to assure their political dominance in the central; meanwhile a merit-based system at various levels of bureaucracy was installed to maintain maintaining stability. Using weather shocks as an instrumental variable for internal conflicts, we find that internal conflicts were an important driver of the sanction, promotion, and appointment decisions for governors and governors general. The presence of internal conflicts in the preceding year significantly increased the probability that a new appointment of governors and governors general being Han, the majority ethnic group of China. This effect became more acute in the late Qing than in early Qing periods. We also find that Han governors were less likely to solicit tax breaks and famine reliefs from the central government, evidence that the majority Han officials were arguably more competent in maintaining stability at local levels.
