Electricity market integration in China: The role of government officials’ hometown ties

Abstract

Market segmentation is common across various sectors, particularly evident in China's electricity market. Meanwhile, officials form a variety of geographic networks due to their innate backgrounds and acquired social connections. An extensive body of studies providing insights into the important role of officials' network ties in resource allocation, but little attention has been paid to the impact of this dynamic process on energy resources. Given that energy plays a significant role in shaping economic growth, our study complements this body of literature by examining how leaders with hometown ties impact inter-provincial electricity trade in China using a gravity model. The gravity model, which has become the traditional framework for estimating the determinants of trade flows, is applicable to the province pairs data structure in our study. Using data on provincial officials' hometown and inter-provincial electricity transactions for 30 provinces in China between 2007 and 2019, the results reveal that a leader whose hometown is i and current jurisdiction is j significantly increases the probability of electricity flowing from i to j, corresponding to a 53.73 % increase, which indicates that they implement a weaker market segmentation on their hometown. Moreover, the results reveal that this effect only occurs in a leader's tenure, and is particularly pronounced when a leader's hometown and current jurisdiction are on the same regional grid, or at least adjacent to each other, or when the current jurisdiction has higher power load levels. The results of mechanism analysis reveal that China's immature electricity market drives officials to leverage hometown ties for market integration, rather than promotion or rent-seeking. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the broader impact of officials' personal ties. It also provides a valuable insight into the factors facilitating the integration of China's electricity market.