Seminar Vol. 107

Title: Winter is Coming: Early-life Experiences and Politicians’ Decisions

Speaker: Pinghan Liang, Sun Yat-sen University

Time: October 16th, 2018 15:15–16:30

Venue: Conference Room 102, Zhonghui Building 

About the speaker:

Pinghan Liang is a Professor at School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University. He obtained PhD in Economics at Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2010. Right after graduation, Pinhang Liang was appointed as Associate Professor at the Research Institute of Economics and Management (RIEM) of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE), where he worked up until 2016. Pinhan Liang's research interests include applied microeconomic theory, organizational economics, political economy and experimental economics. 

Abstract:

The preferences of politician matter in policy-making. This paper focuses on the role of local politicians’ early-life experiences in their policy decisions in office. We exploit the China’s Great Famine from 1959 to 1961 as a natural experiment and examine the fiscal decisions of those county Party secretaries who experienced the famine in early childhood. The results indicate that if the secretary experienced a severer famine that decreased the agricultural population by 10% during their early childhood, other things being equal, they will spend 6.8% more on agriculture and 10.6% more on social security. Moreover, a 10% severer famine experienced during their early childhood decreases agricultural tax by 38.8% and VAT by 5.6%. Further, the long-term impact of secretaries early-childhood exposure to the famine comes from the preference formation, instead of their beliefs about future similar events. Counterfactual experiments suggest that these preferences changes have substantial influence on Chinese agriculture. To examine the channel of famine effect, we exploit the household survey data with a particular focus on Communist Party members. Analyses show that famine experience changes their relevant attitudes significantly.