ECIN Replication Package for "Political Hierarchy Spillovers: Evidence from China"

It is widely believed that political hierarchy correlates with regional development. This paper investigates the impact of the political hierarchies of cities in China from different perspectives. First, we examine the economic development differences between prefectural cities and municipalities. Furthermore, this paper draws upon a quasi-experiment to analyze the impact of upgrading Chongqing to a municipality in 1997 using the synthetic control method. The city-upgrading policy significantly increased Chongqing's GDP in the following four years. Finally, we find that the policy increased GDP in treated cities located within 1000 kilometers of Chongqing by about 11%-13% relative to the control cities.

学界普遍认为，政治层级与区域发展存在关联。本文从多重视角考察中国城市政治层级对区域发展的影响。首先，本文对比分析地级市与直辖市的经济发展差异。进一步，本文基于准自然实验设计，采用合成控制法（Synthetic Control Method）分析1997年重庆升格为直辖市的政策效应。此次升格政策在实施后的四年内显著提升了重庆的地区生产总值（GDP）。最后，本文研究发现，相较于对照组城市，重庆周边1000公里范围内的处理组城市的GDP较政策实施前提升了约11%至13%。