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The competence-loyalty tradeoff in China's political selection

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  • Wang, Zhaoguang
  • Yao, Yang
  • Zhang, Junni

Abstract

This paper studies the competence-loyalty tradeoff and its evolution in China's political system characterized by hierarchical selection. From the eyes of the central controllers, the rational selection rule is to mix competence and loyalty when officials are selected to fill lower-tier positions and to select from them the more loyal to fill higher-level positions. Measuring competence by an official's contribution to local economic growth and loyalty by his work experience (connection) with central leaders, our empirical analysis finds that ability strongly matters and connection weakly matters for city officials promoted to provincial positions, but only connection matters for provincial officials promoted to central positions. Moreover, ability matters more in the early years, and connection matters more in the later years.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Zhaoguang & Yao, Yang & Zhang, Junni, 2022. "The competence-loyalty tradeoff in China's political selection," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 369-393.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:50:y:2022:i:2:p:369-393
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2022.01.007
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2011. "Dictators And Their Viziers: Endogenizing The Loyalty–Competence Trade‐Off," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(5), pages 903-930, October.
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    4. Shih, Victor & Adolph, Christopher & Liu, Mingxing, 2012. "Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members in China," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(1), pages 166-187, February.
    5. Ruixue Jia & Masayuki Kudamatsu & David Seim, 2015. "Political Selection In China: The Complementary Roles Of Connections And Performance," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 631-668, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Wang, He & Yao, Yang & Zhou, Yue, 2022. "Markets price politicians: Evidence from China’s municipal bond markets," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political selection; Chinese political system; Competence-loyalty tradeoff;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets
    • P5 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems

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