改革开放以来,中国的省长、省委书记更替成为一种常态,现有文献忽视了其对辖区经济增长的影响,本文对此进行了探讨。在理论上,我们讨论了多种地方官员更替影响短期经济增长的机制,强调省长、省委书记更替会对辖区经济增长带来短期的负面影响。在实证上,我们采用1979—2006年间我国29个省区的官员更替样本进行检验。结果发现,省长省委书记更替对辖区经济增长有显著的负面影响;这种影响的程度因地方官员更替频率、更替的地方官员的年龄等因素的不同而不同;地方官员更替主要影响辖区的短期经济增长波动,并非长期经济增长趋势。本文的发现是稳健的,能够增进对如何现实省区经济平稳增长的理解。
China's special personnel system, combined with its fiscal system, provides provincial governors powerful incentives to promote local economic growth. Using panel data with governor-province matches in the period 1979--2006, we find that the turnover of local governors results in fluctuations in the local economy, and remarkably slows economic growth in the year of a turnover. The degree of slowdown depends on several factors, such as the frequency of turnovers and the ages of related governors. However, the negative effects are mostly for short-term and do not affect long-run growth trends.