大姓当选:生产性投资还是收入分配

Productive Investment or Income Distribution:Village Election and Large Lineages in Rural China

运用包含宗族和村庄选举的中国农村独特的调查数据,本文研究了姓氏宗族与村委会选举的互动关系,以及大姓宗族当选对村级生产性投资和村庄收入分配的影响。我们发现:(1)在村庄民主选举被引入后,姓氏人口比例高的候选人在村委会主任竞选中更容易获胜,在人口数量上具有优势的大姓于是当选为村主任的可能性会更高。(2)选举产生的大姓村主任,会增加村级的生产性投资,而对农户可支配收入的基尼系数影响不大。(3)大姓当选对投资的促进作用主要体现在姓氏结构多样化的村庄中。这些结果从侧面反映了姓氏宗族不仅为其姓氏当选提供了支持,而且进一步对村级行政体系的政策导向也起到了相互制衡与监督的作用。

Based on a unique dataset included the democratic election and lineages in sample of over two hundreds villages, we investigate the interactive relationship between the lineages and village committee elections, as well as their effects on village - level productive investment and the income distribution. We find that, after the introduction of village - level elections, the candidates that are associated with the higher surname population size enjoy a competition advantage, and so forth the candidates who represent the largest lineage group tend to be elected village chairperson （VC）. We also find that, the elected VC coming from the largest lineage group will increase the village - level productive investment, while have a little effects on the Gini coefficient of the household disposable incomes. The promotion effect on investment is mainly embodied in the lineage frag- mented villages. These results on the average effect of election together with the size of China＇s lineages imply that the local lineages have played a key role in supporting for village democratic election and further determining the policy of the village - level administrative system.