Economic Growth Target, Governor Characters And Political Promotion

Based on the sample of 247 cities in 16 years(1998-2013), this essay study the relationships among economic growth target setting mechanism, target completion, governor characters and political promotion. Through our empirical study, we find out that the economic growth target of current year is basically adjusted from the target of last year. Moreover, the characters of governor who mainly decide the goal would affect the goal setting.Further research shows that although both the younger governors and the governors with experiences working in provincial government are aggressive in the economic growth target setting, however, the governors with experiences working in provincial government have higher probability to complete the goal while the younger governors have much lower probability.Last but not the least, our study finds out that the economic growth target as a performance commitment to the superior government and publics is as important as the economic growth in the political promotion mechanism. In general, the higher percentage of target completion would bring the higher promotion probability. However, this relationship would be affected by the goal setting level. In the high goal setting level, higher percentage of target completion leads to the higher promotion probability, on the other hand, in the low goal setting level, there is no significant relationship between percentage of target completion and probability of promotion.