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Papers by Paul Minard

The transition from exploratory to formal talks on a possible free trade agreement with China has... more The transition from exploratory to formal talks on a possible free trade agreement with China has the potential to represent a greater challenge for the Trudeau government than the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Canadian public opinion has displayed great resistance in recent years to expanded trade with China. Recent shifts toward greater support on this matter followed the rise of protectionist sentiments in the United States and Europe, although fundamental resistance persists to this day. Public support for a free trade agreement with China seems to be tied to the evolution of the NAFTA renegotiation.

Although the advent of the Internet age has seen the growth of a substantial body of theoretical ... more Although the advent of the Internet age has seen the growth of a substantial body of theoretical and empirical work on the effects of media revolutions on citizens' political behavior, the existing literature has not investigated how these effects might vary by regime type. Using a comprehensive dataset including over 21,000 individuals in eleven East Asian states representing four regime types, we find that the effect of Internet use on voter turnout and party preference differs significantly by regime type. Whereas Internet users are slightly less likely to vote in mature and immature democracies, they are nearly twice as likely to do so in immature anocracies. Moreover, although Internet users in full democracies are slightly more likely to vote for " major " parties than non-users, an opposite effect of a much larger magnitude is found in anocracies.

Journal of Contemporary China, May 2015

Numerous scholars have suggested that ICT diffusion may lead to more responsive governance in Chi... more Numerous scholars have suggested that ICT diffusion may lead to more responsive governance in China. To date, however, few empirical studies have been made of the political implications of China’s internet, and previous studies of the association between citizen access to information and government responsiveness have focused on democratic contexts, relying on electoral mechanisms as explanations for the observed positive relationship. This paper investigates ICT diffusion and government responsiveness in China by examining data on the composition of government spending. Results indicate that increasing ICT diffusion is associated with a higher proportion of provincial government spending devoted to health and education, and a lower proportion devoted to capital construction. A collective action mechanism is proposed as a potential driver of these results.

Journal of Asian Public Policy, 2015

A robust literature has demonstrated that de jure regulatory barriers to entry deter firm formati... more A robust literature has demonstrated that de jure regulatory barriers to entry deter firm formation. This paper identifies the discretion available to government officials in tollbooth positions to establish barriers to entry as a de facto policy barrier which is an important source of uncertainty for Chinese entrepreneurs. Defining discretion as the share of provincial government revenue deriving from discretionary charges levied by government departments, I estimate the impact of discretion on the formation of Chinese domestic private enterprises. I find that a one percent decrease in discretion is associated with an additional private enterprise for every 10,000 provincial residents.

Chinese Economy

Though numerous studies have demonstrated an association between property rights and economic per... more Though numerous studies have demonstrated an association between property rights and economic performance, we lack a good understanding of the channels mediating this association. This paper examines data from a World Bank survey of 12,400 Chinese industrial firms and presents evidence consistent with a “sunk cost mechanism” by which property rights affect firm investment levels, new fixed asset investment being more responsive to property rights security among firms with high sunk costs. This finding is robust to two proxies for sunk costs, and is as predicted by an options model of optimal investment.

Information asymmetry between Chinese banks and small and medium-sized domestic private enterpris... more Information asymmetry between Chinese banks and small and medium-sized domestic private enterprises (SMEs) is a source of credit constraints. This paper investigates whether obtaining an internationally-recognized private certification standard can credibly signal unobserved firm quality, reducing information asymmetry and improving access to finance. Examining World Bank survey data, I find that firms that certified firms are 1.68 times as likely as comparable uncertified firms to receive bank loans. This effect is strongest among smaller firms, for whom information asymmetry is likely a more severe constraint. China’s promotion of certification as a tool of regulatory policy has had the unintended consequence of mitigating policy shortcomings in another domain.

The defence of Arctic sovereignty has gathered high levels of support from the Canadian populatio... more The defence of Arctic sovereignty has gathered high levels of support from the Canadian population in the past 40 years. However, the relationship between public opinion and decision-makers is more ambiguous, especially observing if decisions taken by the governing party registers an effect in the general population. This is especially true for foreign policy issues. Hence, this article assesses whether standing up for Arctic sovereignty translates into concrete political gains for the governing party. In order to test this effect, we gathered federal party support levels reported in 859 opinion polls conducted from 2006 to 2014 in Canada. Focusing on sovereignty operations conducted by National Defence Operations (NUNALIVUT and NANOOK) and aggregating poll results into a “poll of polls”, we find that standing up for Arctic sovereignty is politically profitable.

Conference Presentations by Paul Minard

Assessing the impact of policy and environmental changes on human well-being requires reliable da... more Assessing the impact of policy and environmental changes on human well-being requires reliable data. In many regions of the world, data on citizen incomes or consumption are absent, incomplete or unreliable. These data shortcomings may result from lack of capacity in government statistical departments, incentives of government officials to manipulate economic data, or the prevalence of unrecorded economic activity. Even in developed countries with advanced statistical bureaus, the cost of data gathering efforts requires estimating economic well-being on the basis of samples (which may themselves be biased) or collecting more comprehensive data at predetermined administrative levels at predetermined times. These responses to cost constraints on the part of governments also constrain policy researchers in terms of the policies that can be assessed with traditional economic data. In recent years, economists have employed non-traditional data sources to study economic well-being, particularly in regions where the above-noted constraints are most acute. Prominent among these new data sources are satellite images of nighttime lights emissions. This paper aims to introduce this data source to a general audience concerned with policy impact assessment. It describes the nighttime lights data and reviews evidence on its correlation with traditional measures of economic well-being. It then describes research settings in which the data could be particularly useful. It then describes examples of convincing research designs for policy impact evaluation made possible by the data. Finally, we conclude with a case study, using nighttime lights data to assess the impact of mines in northern Quebec on economic well-being in neighbouring Inuit communities. Our conclusion is that nighttime lights are a useful and cost-effective data source that should be part of the policy impact assessment toolkit.

Drafts by Paul Minard

The causes of China's persistent regional inequality have been much debated, with scholars positi... more The causes of China's persistent regional inequality have been much debated, with scholars positing geo-climactic, institutionalist, human capital and ethno-cultural explanations. I contribute to this debate by examining the contours of China's spatial inequality at a granular level using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data. I estimate spatial Gini coefficients for nighttime lights emissions across five different levels of spatial aggregation: provinces, counties, a 2.5 by 2.5 decimal degree grid, traditional ethnic homelands and perturbed ethnic homelands (which retain the centroid of traditional homelands but have altered borders). Across multiple specifications and 21 years of nighttime lights data, I find inequality is highest at the traditional ethnic homeland level. Subsequent analyses show that inequality in precipitation levels and the caloric suitability of land are also highest at the ethnic homeland level, suggesting that ethnic inequality reflects in part systematic differences in the quality of agricultural land across the traditional homelands of Han and non-Han ethnicities.

The transition from exploratory to formal talks on a possible free trade agreement with China has... more The transition from exploratory to formal talks on a possible free trade agreement with China has the potential to represent a greater challenge for the Trudeau government than the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Canadian public opinion has displayed great resistance in recent years to expanded trade with China. Recent shifts toward greater support on this matter followed the rise of protectionist sentiments in the United States and Europe, although fundamental resistance persists to this day. Public support for a free trade agreement with China seems to be tied to the evolution of the NAFTA renegotiation.

Although the advent of the Internet age has seen the growth of a substantial body of theoretical ... more Although the advent of the Internet age has seen the growth of a substantial body of theoretical and empirical work on the effects of media revolutions on citizens' political behavior, the existing literature has not investigated how these effects might vary by regime type. Using a comprehensive dataset including over 21,000 individuals in eleven East Asian states representing four regime types, we find that the effect of Internet use on voter turnout and party preference differs significantly by regime type. Whereas Internet users are slightly less likely to vote in mature and immature democracies, they are nearly twice as likely to do so in immature anocracies. Moreover, although Internet users in full democracies are slightly more likely to vote for " major " parties than non-users, an opposite effect of a much larger magnitude is found in anocracies.

Journal of Contemporary China, May 2015

Numerous scholars have suggested that ICT diffusion may lead to more responsive governance in Chi... more Numerous scholars have suggested that ICT diffusion may lead to more responsive governance in China. To date, however, few empirical studies have been made of the political implications of China’s internet, and previous studies of the association between citizen access to information and government responsiveness have focused on democratic contexts, relying on electoral mechanisms as explanations for the observed positive relationship. This paper investigates ICT diffusion and government responsiveness in China by examining data on the composition of government spending. Results indicate that increasing ICT diffusion is associated with a higher proportion of provincial government spending devoted to health and education, and a lower proportion devoted to capital construction. A collective action mechanism is proposed as a potential driver of these results.

Journal of Asian Public Policy, 2015

A robust literature has demonstrated that de jure regulatory barriers to entry deter firm formati... more A robust literature has demonstrated that de jure regulatory barriers to entry deter firm formation. This paper identifies the discretion available to government officials in tollbooth positions to establish barriers to entry as a de facto policy barrier which is an important source of uncertainty for Chinese entrepreneurs. Defining discretion as the share of provincial government revenue deriving from discretionary charges levied by government departments, I estimate the impact of discretion on the formation of Chinese domestic private enterprises. I find that a one percent decrease in discretion is associated with an additional private enterprise for every 10,000 provincial residents.

Chinese Economy

Though numerous studies have demonstrated an association between property rights and economic per... more Though numerous studies have demonstrated an association between property rights and economic performance, we lack a good understanding of the channels mediating this association. This paper examines data from a World Bank survey of 12,400 Chinese industrial firms and presents evidence consistent with a “sunk cost mechanism” by which property rights affect firm investment levels, new fixed asset investment being more responsive to property rights security among firms with high sunk costs. This finding is robust to two proxies for sunk costs, and is as predicted by an options model of optimal investment.

Information asymmetry between Chinese banks and small and medium-sized domestic private enterpris... more Information asymmetry between Chinese banks and small and medium-sized domestic private enterprises (SMEs) is a source of credit constraints. This paper investigates whether obtaining an internationally-recognized private certification standard can credibly signal unobserved firm quality, reducing information asymmetry and improving access to finance. Examining World Bank survey data, I find that firms that certified firms are 1.68 times as likely as comparable uncertified firms to receive bank loans. This effect is strongest among smaller firms, for whom information asymmetry is likely a more severe constraint. China’s promotion of certification as a tool of regulatory policy has had the unintended consequence of mitigating policy shortcomings in another domain.

The defence of Arctic sovereignty has gathered high levels of support from the Canadian populatio... more The defence of Arctic sovereignty has gathered high levels of support from the Canadian population in the past 40 years. However, the relationship between public opinion and decision-makers is more ambiguous, especially observing if decisions taken by the governing party registers an effect in the general population. This is especially true for foreign policy issues. Hence, this article assesses whether standing up for Arctic sovereignty translates into concrete political gains for the governing party. In order to test this effect, we gathered federal party support levels reported in 859 opinion polls conducted from 2006 to 2014 in Canada. Focusing on sovereignty operations conducted by National Defence Operations (NUNALIVUT and NANOOK) and aggregating poll results into a “poll of polls”, we find that standing up for Arctic sovereignty is politically profitable.

Assessing the impact of policy and environmental changes on human well-being requires reliable da... more Assessing the impact of policy and environmental changes on human well-being requires reliable data. In many regions of the world, data on citizen incomes or consumption are absent, incomplete or unreliable. These data shortcomings may result from lack of capacity in government statistical departments, incentives of government officials to manipulate economic data, or the prevalence of unrecorded economic activity. Even in developed countries with advanced statistical bureaus, the cost of data gathering efforts requires estimating economic well-being on the basis of samples (which may themselves be biased) or collecting more comprehensive data at predetermined administrative levels at predetermined times. These responses to cost constraints on the part of governments also constrain policy researchers in terms of the policies that can be assessed with traditional economic data. In recent years, economists have employed non-traditional data sources to study economic well-being, particularly in regions where the above-noted constraints are most acute. Prominent among these new data sources are satellite images of nighttime lights emissions. This paper aims to introduce this data source to a general audience concerned with policy impact assessment. It describes the nighttime lights data and reviews evidence on its correlation with traditional measures of economic well-being. It then describes research settings in which the data could be particularly useful. It then describes examples of convincing research designs for policy impact evaluation made possible by the data. Finally, we conclude with a case study, using nighttime lights data to assess the impact of mines in northern Quebec on economic well-being in neighbouring Inuit communities. Our conclusion is that nighttime lights are a useful and cost-effective data source that should be part of the policy impact assessment toolkit.

The causes of China's persistent regional inequality have been much debated, with scholars positi... more The causes of China's persistent regional inequality have been much debated, with scholars positing geo-climactic, institutionalist, human capital and ethno-cultural explanations. I contribute to this debate by examining the contours of China's spatial inequality at a granular level using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data. I estimate spatial Gini coefficients for nighttime lights emissions across five different levels of spatial aggregation: provinces, counties, a 2.5 by 2.5 decimal degree grid, traditional ethnic homelands and perturbed ethnic homelands (which retain the centroid of traditional homelands but have altered borders). Across multiple specifications and 21 years of nighttime lights data, I find inequality is highest at the traditional ethnic homeland level. Subsequent analyses show that inequality in precipitation levels and the caloric suitability of land are also highest at the ethnic homeland level, suggesting that ethnic inequality reflects in part systematic differences in the quality of agricultural land across the traditional homelands of Han and non-Han ethnicities.