Political hierarchy spillovers: Evidence from China
研究中国城市政治层级对经济的影响，以重庆1997年升格为直辖市为例，发现该政策显著提升了重庆及周边1200公里内城市的GDP。
Abstract This paper explores the impact of the political hierarchies of cities in China from different perspectives. First, we examine the economic disparities between prefectural cities and municipalities. Furthermore, this paper draws upon a quasi‐ experiment to analyze the impact of upgrading Chongqing to a municipality in 1997 using the synthetic control method. The city‐upgrading policy significantly increased Chongqing's gross domestic product (GDP) in the following 4 years. Finally, we find that the policy increased GDP in treated cities within 1200 km of Chongqing by about 10%–13% relative to the control cities.