Unpolluted Decisions: Air Quality and Judicial Outcomes in China. 2020. With Peichun Wang. [pdf] (R&R)
Judicial outcomes should not be influenced by factors that have no bearing on legal decisions, but studies have shown that judges can be affected by extraneous variables such as weather, sports events, and food consumption. Employing the universe of drug offense court decisions in five major Chinese cities between 2014 and 2015, we study whether air pollution and temperature affect sentencing outcomes in China, where air pollution is severe and judges have considerable discretion in sentencing drug cases. We find that Chinese criminal judges are not at all affected by pollution or temperature changes. One standard deviation change in air pollutant PM2.5 level may change the sentence length by no more than 2% of its standard deviation with over 95% probability. Further analysis shows that our results are robust to a variety of specifications and a battery of robustness checks. Our findings suggest that judicial rulings are not always swayed by extraneous factors, and we discuss conditions under which public officials are more likely to be shielded from these non-legal factors.
Stimulating the Authoritarian Political Business Cycle: Local Leadership Turnover and Firm Subsidies in China. 2020. With Siyao Li.
We propose a new theory of political business cycles in authoritarian regimes where elections are absent. Contrary to traditional political business cycles where politicians engineer economic growth before elections to boost their chances of re-election, politicians use fiscal instruments to distribute resources to economic actors that help build business-government connections and improve their chances of promotion after they assume their positions. We test our theory in the context of local leadership turnovers and firm subsidies in China. Using subsidies received by publicly listed infrastructure-related firms in China in the period after the 2008 fiscal stimulus program was implemented, we find that new provincial governors, immediately after taking office, tend to redistribute subsidies away from privately owned firms to state-owned enterprises in an effort to forge local business-government connections.
Ethnic Discrimination in Criminal Sentencing in China. 2019. With Rory Truex. [pdf][ssrn]
This paper presents the first analysis of ethnic discrimination in sentencing patterns in the People's Republic of China, focusing on drug cases in Yunnan province. We posit the ``problem minority" hypothesis, which holds that discrimination in an authoritarian system emerges when an ethnic group becomes associated with behavior that generates social instability. On average, minority defendants in Yunnan have sentences that are about 1.5 to 8.0 months longer than Han defendants that have committed similar drug crimes. Further analysis of data from all provinces reveals that this bias is largest for groups heavily involved in the drug trade. Sentencing is particularly harsh in autonomous counties and prefectures where minorities are concentrated.
Protecting Property through Political Office in China. 2018. [pdf] [appendix]
How do entrepreneurs protect their property and grow their businesses in systems without secure property rights? I argue that Chinese private entrepreneurs seek public office to protect their property from government predation. Drawing on rich empirical evidence including in-depth interviews and a unique national survey, I show how Chinese entrepreneurs deter local officials from demanding bribes, ad hoc taxes, and other types of informal payments by securing seats in the local legislature and using their political titles to signal political capital. Using a national survey of Chinese private entrepreneurs from 2000 to 2012, I show that entrepreneurs who serve in the local legislature spend an average of 14.5% less on informal payments to local governments. A simple signaling game further demonstrates how entrepreneurs use their political titles to signal strong political capital and deter expropriation
Judicial outcomes should not be influenced by factors that have no bearing on legal decisions, but studies have shown that judges can be affected by extraneous variables such as weather, sports events, and food consumption. Employing the universe of drug offense court decisions in five major Chinese cities between 2014 and 2015, we study whether air pollution and temperature affect sentencing outcomes in China, where air pollution is severe and judges have considerable discretion in sentencing drug cases. We find that Chinese criminal judges are not at all affected by pollution or temperature changes. One standard deviation change in air pollutant PM2.5 level may change the sentence length by no more than 2% of its standard deviation with over 95% probability. Further analysis shows that our results are robust to a variety of specifications and a battery of robustness checks. Our findings suggest that judicial rulings are not always swayed by extraneous factors, and we discuss conditions under which public officials are more likely to be shielded from these non-legal factors.
Stimulating the Authoritarian Political Business Cycle: Local Leadership Turnover and Firm Subsidies in China. 2020. With Siyao Li.
We propose a new theory of political business cycles in authoritarian regimes where elections are absent. Contrary to traditional political business cycles where politicians engineer economic growth before elections to boost their chances of re-election, politicians use fiscal instruments to distribute resources to economic actors that help build business-government connections and improve their chances of promotion after they assume their positions. We test our theory in the context of local leadership turnovers and firm subsidies in China. Using subsidies received by publicly listed infrastructure-related firms in China in the period after the 2008 fiscal stimulus program was implemented, we find that new provincial governors, immediately after taking office, tend to redistribute subsidies away from privately owned firms to state-owned enterprises in an effort to forge local business-government connections.
Ethnic Discrimination in Criminal Sentencing in China. 2019. With Rory Truex. [pdf][ssrn]
This paper presents the first analysis of ethnic discrimination in sentencing patterns in the People's Republic of China, focusing on drug cases in Yunnan province. We posit the ``problem minority" hypothesis, which holds that discrimination in an authoritarian system emerges when an ethnic group becomes associated with behavior that generates social instability. On average, minority defendants in Yunnan have sentences that are about 1.5 to 8.0 months longer than Han defendants that have committed similar drug crimes. Further analysis of data from all provinces reveals that this bias is largest for groups heavily involved in the drug trade. Sentencing is particularly harsh in autonomous counties and prefectures where minorities are concentrated.
Protecting Property through Political Office in China. 2018. [pdf] [appendix]
How do entrepreneurs protect their property and grow their businesses in systems without secure property rights? I argue that Chinese private entrepreneurs seek public office to protect their property from government predation. Drawing on rich empirical evidence including in-depth interviews and a unique national survey, I show how Chinese entrepreneurs deter local officials from demanding bribes, ad hoc taxes, and other types of informal payments by securing seats in the local legislature and using their political titles to signal political capital. Using a national survey of Chinese private entrepreneurs from 2000 to 2012, I show that entrepreneurs who serve in the local legislature spend an average of 14.5% less on informal payments to local governments. A simple signaling game further demonstrates how entrepreneurs use their political titles to signal strong political capital and deter expropriation
