【主讲】Nancy Qian 教授 (Yale University)
【主题】Political Reform in China: Elections, Public Goods and Income Distribution
【时间】2014年5月12日 (周一) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼710室
【语言】英文
【摘要】We examine the effects of introducing village elections on public good expenditures, income distribution and land use in rural China. We construct a large panel data set by combining village administrative records with contemporaneously collected village- and household-level economic data and we use these data to document the history of political reforms and economic policies for over two hundred villages. We exploit the staggered timing of the introduction of village elections to find that elections sig- nificantly increased public goods expenditure and reduced the amount of village land that the village government leases to enterprises, which mainly benefitted village elites. Consistent with a reduction in cronyism, we also find a reduction in the relative income of rich households. These results suggest that local officials are better controlled by elections rather than by bureaucratic monitoring.
