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  - 2024 Aug 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 568--587
VI  - 100
IP  - 3
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/100/3/568.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/100/3/568.full
AB  - Do network connections between government officials and administrative units facilitate efficient land use contracting across jurisdictions? This article leverages data from a groundbreaking policy in China where a strict quota-bound land use policy was replaced with an alternative, allowing 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 personal and career histories of county-level leaders and present evidence that leader networks derived from employment history are robustly trade-facilitating but nonworkplace links are not.