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This paper investigates the role of local governments’ efficiency on exports in China. We argue that firms located in provinces characterized by high governmental efficiency export more due to a positive productivity effect that lowers transaction costs. The analysis builds on NBS firm-level data that covers a representative sample of Chinese estab...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... particular the eastern provinces of China benefited from the economic reforms, whereas the western regions are still lagging far behind. Figure 1 illustrates the high inequality of GDP per capita across different regions. The three coastal municipalities Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin report the highest GDP per capita across all Chinese provinces. ...
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Citations
... In this regard, Liu et al. [21] find that the operating performance of local governments has a strong influence on a country's competitiveness. Additionally, the paper of Reinecke and Schmerer [16] highlights a positive correlation between firm size and export shares, as stimulated by high governmental efficiency. In fact, it stands out that larger firms in provinces with more efficient provincial governments have higher export rates. ...
Efficient governments, defined as those that provide digital public services and effectively support their citizens through modern tools and channels, can be the result of a variety of factors, including education, urbanization, infrastructure, and economic growth as measured by GDP per capita. Existing research, however, has not provided a convincing answer to this question. At the same time, there is an undeniable increase in the availability and use of digital government services, with disparities in the range of services offered and access to infrastructure. Based on an empirical data set from 2008 to 2020, we propose an investigation into the determinants of e-government use in European Union countries. We use quantitative analysis based on the generalized method of moments (GMM) to explain why people use e-government. Furthermore, we substantiate the results found using the GMM methodology applied to panel data with Granger causality, which shows the contribution of variables to the current values of the other variables over time, highlighting the powerful influences between them. We discovered that education is the most important determinant factor for e-government use in the European Union, but there are some surprising findings, such as the negative correlation between internet use and e-government indicators, or the fact that a better government does not automatically result in economic growth. Rather, a developed country establishes the foundation for its citizens to use public services efficiently.
... We also construct a city efficiency measure based on Tang, Tang, and Lee (2014). More efficient local governments are associated with faster urban growth and more exports (Reinecke & Schmerer, 2017; Rodr ıguez-Rose & Zhang 2019). More efficient local government might be better at dealing with a health emergency. ...
Purpose
Did Chinese cities whose public health departments are headed by medical professionals fare better in fighting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)?
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected the professional background of the directors of the public health departments of 350 Chinese cities, which include 87% of the Chinese population. Excluding Wuhan, the epicenter of COVID-19, the authors analyzed the infection rates and death rates from COVID-19 between 131 Chinese cities whose public health departments are led by medical professionals and 218 cities whose public health departments are led by nonprofessionals. The authors employed a multivariate regression controlling for the number of people that traveled from Wuhan to each city, the local economic development and the number of hospital beds.
Findings
Chinese cities whose public health departments are led by medical professionals had 21 fewer confirmed cases per 10 million as of January 31, 2020 [95% CI, −40 to −3], 58 fewer cases per 10 million in the next 10 days [95% CI, −116 to 0], similar new cases between February 11 and February 20, 2020, and 3 fewer deaths per 10 million as of February 20, 2020 [95% CI, −7 to 0].
Research limitations/implications
Association could not make a strong causal claim.
Practical implications
Local public health authorities are critical for combating a pandemic. The authors found that Chinese cities whose public health departments are headed by medical professionals were associated with lower infection rates and fewer death rates from COVID-19. The results were significant only at the start of the outbreak. This study’s results suggest that to better combat a pandemic, local public health authorities should be led by competent people who have a medical background.
Originality/value
The authors provide the first empirical evidence about the association between a local public health head's competence and the infection rate and death rate of COVID-19. The authors’ manually collected data also show that only 38% of the heads of the public health departments of Chinese cities have a medical background.
... Corruption was deemed to have had no effect on state-owned firms while, somewhat surprisingly, it led to higher productivity in private firms. The negative effects of corruption on TFP were mainly felt in those firms with a larger ratio of fixed capital and in firms with a Reinecke and Schmerer (2017) provided evidence to support the link between provincial government efficiency and firm-level exports. ...
Economic growth in China in recent decades has largely rested on the dynamism of its cities. High economic growth has coincided with measures aimed at improving the efficiency of local governments and with a mounting political drive to curb corruption. Yet the connection between government institutions and urban growth in China remains poorly understood. This paper is the first to look into the connection between government efficiency and corruption, on the one hand, and urban growth in China, on the other and to assess what is the role of institutions relative to more traditional factors for economic growth in Chinese cities. Using panel data for 283 cities over the period between 2003 and 2014, the results show that urban growth in China is a consequence of a combination of favourable human capital, innovation, density, local conditions, foreign direct investment (FDI), and, city‐level government institutions. Both government quality – especially for those cities with the best governments – and the fight against corruption at the city level have a direct effect on urban growth. Measures to tackle corruption at the provincial level matter in a more indirect way, by raising or lowering the returns of other growth‐inducing factors.
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In the second quarter of 2020, the United States faced an economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, which reduced the country's production capacity and volume of bilateral exports. Due to the expected adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on bilateral exports, we aim to assess the impact of the pandemic on the scale efficiency of US bilateral exports. We first identified the determinants of bilateral exports from the United States to its ten major trading partners using a generalized gravity model and the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) method during 2010:Q1-2023:Q4. After identifying these determinants, we employed them as input vectors to calculate the scale efficiency changes of bilateral exports using the Malmquist index. The results obtained from this study indicate that bilateral exports have been positively impacted by the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States and its trading partners, regional trade agreements, and common border. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on exports was negative and statistically significant. More importantly, the pandemic reduced the scale efficiency of US bilateral exports in the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2020, when the government imposed strict controls to manage it.
