Topic：Starving and Deceiving: Famine Experience, Politician Risk Preference, and GDP Manipulation in China
Speaker：Chen Shuo, Fudan University
Time: 13:30-15:00
Date：September 23，2019
Venue：Room 106B，Zhonghui Building

Abstract:
Recent studies have found that the childhood experience of natural disasters shape people's behaviors by changing their risk preferences. Yet less studies explore whether natural disasters would change politicians' behaviors. Based on a novel dataset covering information on 5,389 county party secretaries in China, this article empirically explore whether the childhood experience of famine affects officials' GDP manipulation behavior. We find that officials who experienced famine in childhood are less likely to cheat on GDP data. The results are robust after controlling for a range of socio-economic indicators, the level of promotion incentives for officials, and other shock