{"title":"Pro-growth inefficiency: Rents and moral hazard in infrastructure contests in China","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102397","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We study contests for promotion of local government leaders orchestrated by the central government in China. The contests rewarded regional economic success. The probability of promotion increased with regional infrastructure investment but we find negative returns from infrastructure. We find feedback between corruption<span> and investment in infrastructure. There was moral hazard – successful local government leaders who were promoted to higher level positions in the government and Party hierarchical structure left behind regional local governments mired in debt or bankruptcy because of debt financing of infrastructure investment that was used to win the center-orchestrated contests. Our study makes a contribution to contest theory by providing an empirical study for rent-seeking contests.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":51439,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Political Economy","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268023000411","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We study contests for promotion of local government leaders orchestrated by the central government in China. The contests rewarded regional economic success. The probability of promotion increased with regional infrastructure investment but we find negative returns from infrastructure. We find feedback between corruption and investment in infrastructure. There was moral hazard – successful local government leaders who were promoted to higher level positions in the government and Party hierarchical structure left behind regional local governments mired in debt or bankruptcy because of debt financing of infrastructure investment that was used to win the center-orchestrated contests. Our study makes a contribution to contest theory by providing an empirical study for rent-seeking contests.
期刊介绍：
The aim of the European Journal of Political Economy is to disseminate original theoretical and empirical research on economic phenomena within a scope that encompasses collective decision making, political behavior, and the role of institutions. Contributions are invited from the international community of researchers. Manuscripts must be published in English. Starting 2008, the European Journal of Political Economy is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index published by Thomson Scientific (formerly ISI).
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
