Industrial Specialization in China: Effects of Central Tools Governing Subnational Agency
研究中央管理地方政府的两种工具（提升组织效能和官员晋升）如何影响中国31个省级政府的产业专业化选择，发现组织效能促进明智选择，而官员晋升反而可能导致不明智选择。
Abstract We examine how the central government's management of subnational governments' agency influences the smartness of the latter's industrial specialization choices. Based on smart industrial specialization theory and agency theory, we hypothesize how two central government tools governing subnational governments' agency – facilitating their organizational efficacy and promoting their officials to higher ranks – explain recent industrial specialization choices by China's 31 provincial governments. We find that provincial governments with greater organizational efficacy, measured by access to better-resourced local state-owned enterprises in focal industries, make smarter specialization policies. In addition, we show that provincial governments with greater numbers of officials previously promoted to the central government make, contrary to conventional wisdom, potentially less smart specialization policies. Our research extends smart specialization theory by explaining that central government tools governing subnational agency problems can have knock-on effects making subnational governments' industrial specialization choices smart or unsmart.