题目：National Representation and Local Public Expenditure: A Natural Experiment from Japan

时间：2015年4月22日  星期三     12:00 – 14:00

地点：明德主楼610

报告人：Haishan Yuan (袁海山)

摘要：In Japan’s mixed-member electoral system, a candidate who fails to obtain a plurality of votes in a district may still be elected through a party list, giving her district two representatives instead of one. Extending the regression discontinuity design, I construct a sample of districts in which the assignment of an additional representative is as if random. I find that having an additional representative on average increases municipal expenditure by 1.8%. Within marginally winning districts, core municipalities of the second representative gain, but so do core municipalities of the first representative. This suggests that even in parliamentary systems with strong parties, political competition incentivizes politicians to bring public spending to core supporters in their districts.

报告人简介：Haishan Yuan is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Economics at the University of Queensland, Australia (UQ). Before joining UQ, he obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2014. His empirical-oriented research has focused on the distribution of public expenditures, interest groups behaviors, sales tax, electoral institutions and voting behaviors. A paper of his, which links (de-) regulation of corporate political spending and stock value of firms in the United States, is forthcoming in the American Law and Economics Review.