In recent years, there has been increasing interest in whether and how bureaucratic
effectiveness contributes to development. Just what makes for an effective bureaucracy and …

We study how sharing a hometown or college connection with an incumbent member of
China's Politburo affects a candidate's likelihood of selection as a new member. In …

Exploiting China's anti-corruption campaign, we show that following a decrease in
corruption, firm performance improves. Small and young firms benefit more. We identify the …

We survey recent theoretical and empirical literature on political economics of non-
democracies. Nondemocratic regimes face multiple challenges to their rule, both internal …

In this paper, we investigate how the promotion incentive of politicians affects the pay gap
between executives and employees in local firms. We find that the promotion incentive of …

Governments use their countries' economic strength from existing financial and trade
relationships to achieve geopolitical and economic goals. We refer to this practice as …

We study how adverse economic shocks influence political outcomes in strong authoritarian
regimes, by examining the export slowdown in China during the mid-2010s. We first show …

We investigate the initial phase of China's anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping, finding
that arrests are associated with departures from standard promotion practices that rewarded …

We examine how local accountability shapes the policy choices of officials and affect local
development in a one-party authoritarian country, China. We argue that county leaders from …

Many, if not most, personalistic dictatorships end up with a disastrous decision such as
Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, Hirohito's government launching a war against the United …