American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
The Rise and Fall of Local Elections in China
American Economic Review
vol. 112,
no. 9, September 2022
(pp. 2921–58)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
We posit that autocrats introduce local elections when their bureaucratic capacity is low. Local elections exploit citizens' informational advantage in keeping local officials accountable, but they also weaken vertical control. As bureaucratic capacity increases, the autocrat limits the role of elected bodies to regain vertical control. We argue that these insights can explain the introduction of village elections in rural China and the subsequent erosion of village autonomy years later. We construct a novel dataset to document political reforms, policy outcomes, and de facto power for almost four decades. We find that the introduction of elections improves popular policies and weakens unpopular ones. Increases in regional government resources lead to loss of village autonomy, but less so in remote villages. These patterns are consistent with an organizational view of local elections within autocracies.Citation
Martinez-Bravo, Monica, Gerard Padró i Miquel, Nancy Qian, and Yang Yao. 2022. "The Rise and Fall of Local Elections in China." American Economic Review, 112 (9): 2921–58. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20181249Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
- P25 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
- P26 Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems; Property Rights