Published:
Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2017
Published in:NBER working paper series ; no. w23098
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource
Language:
English
DOI:
10.3386/w23098
Identifier:
Reproduction note:
Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
Origination:
Footnote:
Mode of access: World Wide Web
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files
Description:
We study a 2004 program designed to motivate Chinese bureaucrats to reduce accidental deaths. Each province received a set of 'death ceilings' that, if exceeded, would impede government officials' promotions. For each category of accidental deaths, we observe a sharp discontinuity in reported deaths at the ceiling, suggestive of manipulation. Provinces with safety incentives for municipal officials experienced larger declines in accidental deaths, suggesting complementarities between incentives at different levels of government. While realized accidental deaths predict the following year's ceiling, we observe no evidence that provinces manipulate deaths upward to avoid ratchet effects in the setting of death ceilings