The Higher-Ranking Local Officials and Regional Economic Growth : Evidence from China

This paper investigates the effect of political hierarchy on regional economic growth from the perspective of officials' rank. Based on this phenomenon that higher-ranking local officials (HRO) serve in regions with lower administrative level, matching prefecture-level cities’ data and officials’ data from 2001 to 2019, we use the staggered difference-in-differences model and find that HRO can significantly promote the regional economic growth in prefecture-level, and this effect is stronger in cites of lower development level. Further, the mechanism analysis shows that the HRO cites not only could receive upper-level government’s favoritism obtaining additional government transfers but also tend to shape good business environment to attract investment. This paper identifies a more random institutional arrangement for raising regional political hierarchy from the perspective of officials' rank, and offers some critical implications for coordinated regional development