Mayors’ promotion incentives and subnational-level GDP manipulation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11079208 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jiangnan Zeng (0000-0001-6136-7066, corresponding author), Qiyao Zhou (0000-0002-7993-3289) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 143 |
| Pages | 103679 |
| Publication date | 2024-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Urban Economics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-1190 • E-ISSN: 1095-9068 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.jue.2024.103679 |
| OpenAlex | W4399993744 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 34 |
What role do local officials’ incentives play in regional economic growth? How do local officials behave under promotion pressure? This paper studies the unintended impact of mayors’ promotion incentives on regional economic growth and subnational-level GDP manipulation in China. We employ a regression discontinuity design that accounts for age restrictions in deciding promotions for mayors. We find that when GDP performance is prioritized in officials’ promotion evaluations (before 2013), mayors’ promotion incentives significantly increase the statistical GDP growth rate by 3.4 percentage points. However, their effects on nighttime light and other non-manipulable real economic growth indicators are close to zero. This gap can be attributed to GDP manipulation under our empirical framework. The above pattern no longer persists after 2013, when the role of GDP statistics in mayoral promotions was reduced. Our findings indicate that GDP manipulation makes performance-based competition between mayors devolve into a data manipulation game
Business · Economics · Incentive · Microeconomics · Political science · Promotion (chess · Public economics · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Local Government Finance and Decentralization
Playing with Time
Official rotation and urban economic growth in China
Top managers’ language dissimilarity and public organizational performance
Institutional environment, government hierarchy, and industrial land expansion in China
Securing power, compromising climate
Peer effects in local government decision-making on new infrastructure investment
The ecological and economic impacts of national park pilot projects in China
Enforcing discipline in China
Are climate adaptation policy effective? Evidence from China's climate adaptation city pilot
The influence of political leaders’ difference on government leader’s career development in China
Alleviating or aggravating? How patronage ties moderate the impacts of performance feedback on data manipulation in public performance management
Political incentives and local connections
Understanding the geographical process of the decline in manufacturing employment in China between 2000 and 2020
The Gaze of China’s Chief Officials
Does the preservation policy of historical and cultural heritage promote economic growth? Evidence from China
From Digital Clusters to Urban Environmental Sustainability
Does the baby that cries get milk? Direct and indirect effects of public participation on environmental governance in China
Performance measurability, local government’s incentives, and regional air pollution reduction
Raising grievances to the state
Flood shocks, heterogeneous risk exposure, and housing market dynamics in China
Anti-corruption shocks, political incentives, and regional economic development in a developmental state
The impact of China’s dual land supply strategy on urban economic growth
The politics of land allocation toward green development
Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits
Subnational leaders and economic growth
Incentives for China's urban mayors to mitigate pollution externalities
Regional Favoritism
Incentives, Information, and Organizational Form
State Capacity and Local Agent Control in China
Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space
Do Political Parties Matter? Evidence from U.S. Cities
The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959–1961
Relative performance evaluation and the turnover of provincial leaders in China
Federalism with and without Political Centralization
Regression discontinuity inference with specification error
Political turnover and economic performance
Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India
The Fundamental Institutions of China's Reforms and Development
Regression discontinuity designs
Electoral Accountability and Corruption
What is happening to China's GDP statistics
How Xi Jinping Dominates Elite Party Politics
Sprinting with Small Steps” Towards Promotion
The Limits of Meritocracy
Career concerns and multitasking local bureaucrats
Making Bureaucracy Work
The Tragedy of theNomenklatura
| Citations per year | 11.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |