Virtuous politicians are considered as ideal public servants. Ironically, social order does not necessarily improve when good politicians replace flawed ones. A corrupt politician (“Godfather”) may arbitrate otherwise violent conflicts for extralegal personal benefits, while maintaining...

Scholars have recognized that strengthening the state's fiscal capacity is a prerequisite for long-term economic development. However, a nationwide fiscal centralization reform by the Qing government (1723-1735) failed to achieve this goal. Instead, we find that the centralization reform...

Dishonest politicians can be highly detrimental to economic development. How do disasters reshape politicians’ lies? Using data from the tragic famine in China (1959-1961), we employ a difference-in-differences approach to show that public officials with childhood (0-6 years) famine exposure...

A salient feature of China’s Great Leap Famine is that political radicalism varied enormously across provinces. Using excessive grain procurement as a pertinent measure, we find that such variations were patterned systematically on the political career incentives of Communist Party officials...

This paper uses a sample of 425 students from 4 large sections of Introductory Microeconomics during the period 2005 – 2007 to examine the impact of using the Personal Response System (PRS or Clickers) on class attendance and exam performance. The evidence suggests that the use of PRS has led...

China's rapid economic growth has had a serious impact on the environment. Environmental hazards are major sources of health risk factors. The migration of over 200 million people to heavily polluted urban areas is likely to be significantly detrimental to health. Based on data from the 2009...

This article examines the effects of road tolls on economic growth in China. Using a provincial panel data and pool mean group method, we find that a 1% rise in road tolls leads to 0.005% and 0.03% reduction in GDP growth and GDP per capita, respectively. Moreover, it shows that although more...

Purpose – The paper aims to achieve translational shaking tests on a 6-DOF hydraulic parallel manipulator. Shaking tests are commonly performed on shaking tables, which are generally used for small motion ranges and are usually financially costly. The research is required to generate shaking...