Race to safety: Political competition, neighborhood effects, and coal mine deaths in China

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Shi, Xiangyu; Xi, Tianyang
• 署名单位: Yale University; Peking University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2017.10.008
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 79-95
• 关键词: Neighborhood effect; Coal mine death; relative performance evaluation

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 refonns 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.