Local Government

This paper asks whether creating new local districts—government fragmentation—affects local economic activity, using Indonesia’s large wave of district splits from 2000–2014 as a case. The authors exploit variation in the timing of district splits to estimate effects on district GDP and public spending patterns, and they compare outcomes for newly created (“child”) districts and their parents. The study’s central contribution is empirical evidence that fragmentation can reduce measured local GDP in the short run even when central transfers rise.

This study asks how punishment of corruption shapes public support under authoritarian rule and tests two mechanisms: that punishment signals government capacity (instrumental) and that it signals moral commitment (deontological). Using an experimental mediation design embedded in a series of conjoint experiments in China, the authors present individual-level evidence about citizens’ evaluations of local officials who punish corrupt subordinates.

This study investigates how government politicians strategically communicate about economic conditions and crime to voters.

Do strong partisans show consistent preferences on economic development policies despite differing opinions at the national level? This study employs conjoint survey experiments in eight US metropolitan areas to investigate partisan sorting versus polarization. We find that while party identification strongly shapes preferences for local economic development issues, these policy positions remain largely similar across voters regardless of their political alignment. Unlike national politics where partisans diverge sharply on most policies, this research suggests a greater potential for bipartisan agreement and cooperation in urban governance.