Learn, In Order to Practise: the Effect of Political Rotation on Local Comparative Advantage in China (with Justin Yifu Lin, Songrui Liu, and Mingzhi (Jimmy) Xu)

时间：2022年12月14日(周三)13:30-15:00
参与方式：线上（发送自我简介到邮箱 lujing@nsd.pku.edu.cn 获取线上会议信息）
主讲人：张皓辰（新结构博士生）
参与老师：（国发院）李力行，席天扬，徐化愚，于航，王轩，易君健
        （经院）刘冲，吴群锋，曹光宇

论文摘要：This paper investigates the role of political rotation in interregional knowledge diffusion. We examine the effect of intercity leader rotation in China on cities’ export compositions as a proxy for knowledge diffusion. We find that a party secretary transfer to a new prefecture is associated with an increase in the prefecture’s revealed comparative advantage (RCA) in products in which the prefecture of the leader’s last position has comparative advantage. This effect is stronger for industries with a higher reliance on contract enforcement, and for officials with higher educational attainment and working experience in the central government. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that party secretary transfers can account for about 8.4% of the overall growth of China’s RCA in the world in machinery and electronics industries. Moreover, a decomposition of RCA reveals that the leader rotation’s effect on RCA potentially operates through increased market access and supply-side factors, such as varieties, productivity, product differentiation, and quality.