主题：The fiscal foundation of political sharing: dilemma of decentralization in China, 1870-1910

主讲人：北京大学国家发展研究院助理教授纽约大学博士席天扬

时间：2017年12月12日（周二）下午13：30

地点：经济学院210会议室

主持人：李井奎 教授

主办单位：浙江财经大学经济理论与可持续发展研究中心

主讲人简介：席天扬，北京大学国家发展研究院助理教授，纽约大学政治学博士。研究方向为政治经济学和比较政治学，关心的研究领域包括官员选任机制及其对经济、社会和政治的影响，政治体制和国家能力的关系，社会冲突的治理，近期的研究兴趣还包括资源依赖和企业家精神、税收负担和企业社会责任，以及全球化对于政治民粹主义的影响等。研究论文见刊或即将发表于Journal of Theoretical Politics, European Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Development Economics等中英文刊物。

报告摘要:

This paper empirically examines how fiscal performance and political connections matter for bureaucratic selections in the imperial China during the late Qing period, utilizing a unique data set covering the career paths of over 800 high ranking bureaucrats. The outbreak of mass Taiping Rebellions in the 1850s posed a severe challenge to the state capacity of Qing, forcing the rulers to delegate the power to levy Likin, the commodity tax being collected at regional customs, to provincial governments. Along with the expansion of markets in the late 19th century, Likin became increasingly important as a source of fiscal revenues for the state, amounting to nearly 50 percent of the annual income. The paper documents complementary effects of fiscal performance and political connections in determining the promotion of bureaucrats. Specifically, the probabilities of promotion for governors and lieutenant governors were both positively related to the amount of Likin revenue, so were political connections to power factions in the central government. Moreover, the Likin revenue enhanced the power of governors-general, increasing the probability of promotion for lower level bureaucrats with connections to the governors-general. The results are robust to the inclusion of internal and external military conflicts. The long term impacts of fiscal decentralization on regime stability are also investigated.