Winter is Coming: Early-Life Experiences and Politicians’ Decisions

IF 3.8 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economic Journal Pub Date : 2023-08-12 DOI:10.1093/ej/uead061

Shiqi Guo, Nan Gao, Pinghan Liang

引用次数: 3

Abstract

Abstract This paper traces the formation of politicians’ policy preferences to their early-life experiences. Based on biographical information on 2,806 county party secretaries in China and fiscal data from the 1,713 counties they governed during the 1998–2007 period, we find that a one-percentage-point increase in the early-life famine severity experienced by a county party secretary increases fiscal expenditures on agriculture by 0.8% and on social security subsidies by 1.1%. Agricultural taxes are reduced significantly, boosting grain production in the county party secretaries’ work counties. Our findings suggest that county party secretaries who experience early-life famine may develop preferences for food sufficiency and care for people suffering hardships.

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冬天来了:早期生活经历和政治家的决定

摘要本文将政治家政策偏好的形成追溯到其早期生活经历。基于中国2806名县委书记的个人资料和他们1998-2007年间1713个县的财政数据，我们发现，县委书记早年经历的饥荒严重程度每增加1个百分点，农业财政支出就会增加0.8%，社会保障补贴支出就会增加1.1%。大幅降低农业税，促进县委书记工作县粮食生产。我们的研究结果表明，早年经历过饥荒的县委书记可能会倾向于食物充足，并关心遭受苦难的人。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Economic Journal ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

6.60

自引率

3.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Economic Journal is the Royal Economic Society''s flagship title, and is one of the founding journals of modern economics. Over the past 125 years the journal has provided a platform for high quality and imaginative economic research, earning a worldwide reputation excellence as a general journal publishing papers in all fields of economics for a broad international readership. It is invaluable to anyone with an active interest in economic issues and is a key source for professional economists in higher education, business, government and the financial sector who want to keep abreast of current thinking in economics.