近日，北大国发院2017届硕士毕业生，现就读耶鲁大学经济系博士生石襄禺和国发院席天扬助理教授的合作论文“Race to Safety: Political Competition, Neighborhood Effects, and Coal Mine Deaths in China”被发展经济学领域的国际权威期刊 Journal of Development Economics 接受。

主流文献认为，当代中国基于地区分权、绩效评估和官员晋升激励的体制过分强调GDP增长和财政表现，损害了社会公正、安全、可持续发展等政策维度。该文以煤矿生产安全为对象，探讨相对绩效评估和地方政府政治激励对于社会公共治理的影响。文章利用中国2001年到2011年期间163个煤矿主产区城市的季度矿难死亡数据，研究了地级市间矿难死亡的空间相关模式，即地级市煤矿安全如何被省内同级城市的表现而影响。

文章采用基于最大似然估计的空间自回归模型得到了正向空间相关性的稳健估计，并发现同省内地级市间矿难死亡人数的空间相关性不随地理半径变化，且该效应在越过省边界后即告消失。矿难空间效应在经济规模和政治地位相近的城市间更为显著，并受到中央政府强化煤矿安全监管和绩效考核、政治周期，以及地方官员本地联系等因素的影响。在排除各种替代性假说后，经验证据表明，这一空间相关性来自于相对绩效评估(Relative Performance Evaluation)导致的政治竞争。中央政府主导下的绩效考核带动了安全治理的空间竞争，放大了安全监管的力度，可能是促使近年来煤矿生产安全状况显著改善的原因之一。该文调和了已有文献对分权和集权政策影响的二分视角，表明在分权体制下，中央政府仍然可以通过绩效评估和人事控制在诸如安全和环保等政策问题上施加影响，推进有利于社会整体福利的目标。

英文摘要

When political agents are subject to centralized performance evaluation, their efforts and performances tend to be correlated with one another in the “neighborhood”. Using quarterly data from prefecture-level cities in China, this paper finds evidence of positive neighborhood effects on coal mine deaths: the number of accidental deaths in a city is positively associated with those in its political neighbors. The neighborhood effects are confined by provincial borders, but do not diminish as the geographic scope of the neighborhood increases. Moreover, the effects are amplified by regulatory reforms and political cycles that increase the salience of coal mine safety. The findings of neighborhood effects on coal mine deaths are consistent with the logic of relative performance evaluation (RPE) as a mechanism for shaping policy outcomes.

论文下载：
Race to Safety