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The Matching of Heterogeneous Firms and Politicians

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  • Chen, Maggie

Abstract

We use a Chinese firm-director level panel dataset to examine the matching of heterogeneous firms and politicians. Based on 36,308 detailed biographies, we identify individuals that previously held bureaucratic positions and classify the rank of each position in the Chinese political hierarchy. Using this direct measure of political capital, we examine how firms with heterogeneous productivity match with politicians with different political strength. Our results indicate a positive assortative matching in the political markets. More productive firms recruit more powerful politicians. Further, the preference for political capital relative to conventional human capital increases in firms' dependence on external financing and decreases in the efficiency of local governments. Conditional on the endogenous matching, new hires with greater political strength receive more compensation than their co-workers in the same cohort. The marginal effect of a one-step rise in the political ladder exceeds the marginal effect of raising education attainment from, for example, high school to college.

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  • Chen, Maggie, 2009. "The Matching of Heterogeneous Firms and Politicians," MPRA Paper 23508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:23508
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    Cited by:

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    2. Elise S. Brezis & Joël Cariolle, 2017. "Financial Sector Regulation and the Revolving Door in US Commercial Banks," Studies in Political Economy, in: Norman Schofield & Gonzalo Caballero (ed.), State, Institutions and Democracy, pages 53-76, Springer.
    3. Taining Wang & Jinjing Tian & Feng Yao, 2021. "Does high debt ratio influence Chinese firms’ performance? A semiparametric stochastic frontier approach with zero inefficiency," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 587-636, August.
    4. Fang, Mingyue, 2014. "先天优势还是后天努力？——国企级别对全要素生产率影响的实证研究 [Innate Advantages or Hard Work? An Empirical Study on the Impacts of SOEs’ Administrative Level on Total Factor Productivity]," MPRA Paper 60439, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Elise S. Brezis & Joel Cariolle, 2014. "The Revolving Door Indicator: Estimating the Distortionary Power of the Revolving Door," Working Papers 2014-13, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    6. He, Qing & Li, Xiaoyang & Zhu, Wenyu, 2020. "Political connection and the walking dead: Evidence from China's privately owned firms," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1056-1070.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    firm heterogeneity; politician; political hierarchy; matching;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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