PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Chau, Nancy H.
AU  - Qin, Yu
AU  - Zhang, Weiwen
TI  - Leader Networks and Interjurisdictional Contracting in Land Conversion Quotas
AID  - 10.3368/le.100.3.040120-0046R1
DP  - 2023 Dec 18
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 062321-0072R1
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/early/2023/12/11/le.100.3.040120-0046R1.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/early/2023/12/11/le.100.3.040120-0046R1.full
AB  - Do network connections between government officials and administrative units facilitate efficient land use contracting across jurisdictions? This paper leverages data from a ground-breaking policy in China where a strict quota-bound land use policy was replaced by an alternative permitting between-county trade in land conversion quotas. We unpack the determinants of the boundary between trading and autarkic jurisdictions, and unveil leader-related drivers of transaction costs between jurisdictions in a gravity-style estimation. We catalogue entire personal and career histories of county-level leaders, and present evidence that leader networks derived from employment history are robustly trade facilitating but non-workplace links are not.