近日，北大国发院姚洋教授、席天扬助理教授与上海财经大学张牧扬副教授（国发院13届校友）合作的论文“Capability and Opportunism: Evidence from City Officials in China.”被比较经济学和制度经济学领域的国际权威期刊Journal of Comparative Economics接受。

该论文研究了中国特色的选拔体制对于官员能力的识别作用，分析了能力和官员的政治机会主义行为之间的关系。传统政治经济学文献对于政治家和官员行为的研究大多采用政治激励为理论视角，通过选举周期、任期、连任和晋升几率的变化来解释治理绩效和公共政策的选择。然而绩效和政策不仅取决于激励，还取决于主政官员的个体因素：领导者的能力、经验、理念和知识背景可以被看作一种广义的政治人力资本影响和塑造组织绩效。近年来政治经济学领域的理论研究揭示，强烈的政治激励对于组织绩效可能会产生不利影响，导致机会主义的政策选择，进而损害选拔机制对于个体能力和禀赋的识别作用。但在实证策略上，挑战在于如何分离激励和个人能力对于绩效的作用，可靠地识别异质性能力。姚洋和张牧扬2015年发表于Journal of Economic Growth的论文借鉴了劳动经济学领域的利用雇主—雇员数据识别个人效应的办法，利用中国特色的地方官员横向调动体制，首次估计了地级市官员促进地方经济增长的能力，并证明能力和官员的晋升几率显著正相关。

姚洋、席天扬和张牧扬的合作论文把该方法引入政治经济学激励—选拔的理论框架，借鉴政治商业周期研究中的信号博弈模型，把经济增长和财政指标随党代会的周期性变化作为对于政治机会主义的度量，实证分析了官员能力对于来自晋升激励的短期机会主义行为的影响。基于地级市2003-2011年的经济和财政数据表明，地方主政官员存在着以党代会周期为标识的显著政治周期，与此同时，该周期效应仅存在于能力相对较低的官员组别，对于高能力官员组别不显著。该研究显示中国特色的选拔机制能够通过调动和组织部门的长期评估，改进官僚体制的选拔功能，部分地缓解由于晋升激励造成的机会主义。本文也是国内外政治经济学领域中针对激励和选拔(incentive versus selection)的第一篇基于个体异质性的实证研究。

Abstract:

Opportunism is prevalent in political competition and public policy making. This paper investigates how opportunism is mitigated by capabilities among city leaders in China. Taking advantage of China's institutional setup with ample bureaucratic transfers, the paper estimates leaders' capabilities as their personal contributions to local economic growth. The paper finds strong evidence of political business cycles --- a typical form of political opportunism --- as manifested by a significant boost in the growth rate preceding the Communist Party's national congress. However, more capable leaders are found to generate more modest political business cycles than less capable ones do.  The findings suggest that, to the extent that political selections are associated with the long term reputation of officials, career-concerned opportunism is at least partially moderated by the selection of capable officials in China. The paper provides supportive evidence for the reputation model of political business cycles as well as enriches the study of government official

论文下载： Capability