The long shadow of history in China: regional governance reform and Chinese territorial inequality
The long shadow of history in China: regional governance reform and Chinese territorial inequality
Do external shocks affect local government quality and, consequently, long-term economic development? The collapse in 1911 of the Qing Dynasty in China was one of the greatest institutional shocks in world history, marking the end of more than 2,000 years of imperial rule. We exploit this shock to examine the impact of changes in historic local government quality on economic development today. By measuring variations in governance quality across 1,664 Chinese counties and examining their impact on long-term economic development, we show that historical differences in local governance quality are strong predictors of current geographical differences in economic development. This positive relationship is robust to a rich gamut of controls and checks. To further address causality issues, we instrument historical government quality with the location of military towns in the preceding Ming dynasty. The analysis shows that history has left a deep legacy on governance differences across China that determine, to a considerable extent, current Chinese regional inequalities.
Wang, Han
63374a4c-194e-474e-90a0-d773fc6db98b
Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés
2e72377a-bb53-4c1a-8d67-47f50723b68a
Lee, Neil
81ff8860-ce0e-4546-905a-bde468b91bb1
5 August 2021
Wang, Han
63374a4c-194e-474e-90a0-d773fc6db98b
Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés
2e72377a-bb53-4c1a-8d67-47f50723b68a
Lee, Neil
81ff8860-ce0e-4546-905a-bde468b91bb1
Wang, Han, Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés and Lee, Neil
(2021)
The long shadow of history in China: regional governance reform and Chinese territorial inequality.
Applied Geography, 134, [102525].
(doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102525).
Abstract
Do external shocks affect local government quality and, consequently, long-term economic development? The collapse in 1911 of the Qing Dynasty in China was one of the greatest institutional shocks in world history, marking the end of more than 2,000 years of imperial rule. We exploit this shock to examine the impact of changes in historic local government quality on economic development today. By measuring variations in governance quality across 1,664 Chinese counties and examining their impact on long-term economic development, we show that historical differences in local governance quality are strong predictors of current geographical differences in economic development. This positive relationship is robust to a rich gamut of controls and checks. To further address causality issues, we instrument historical government quality with the location of military towns in the preceding Ming dynasty. The analysis shows that history has left a deep legacy on governance differences across China that determine, to a considerable extent, current Chinese regional inequalities.
Text
The_Long_Shadow_of_History_in_China
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 26 July 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 5 August 2021
Published date: 5 August 2021
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 482223
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/482223
ISSN: 0143-6228
PURE UUID: 08ea390e-8a72-45ee-b1de-0b66e3bf504e
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Date deposited: 21 Sep 2023 16:52
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 07:46
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Author:
Han Wang
Author:
Andrés Rodríguez-Pose
Author:
Neil Lee
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