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Social Ties and the Selection of China's Political Elite
- Fisman, Raymond (Boston University)
- Wang, Yonxiang (University of Southern California)
- Shi, Jing (Macquarie University)
- Wu, Weixing (University of International Business and Economics)
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National Science Foundation
- Award Number: 1729784
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Abstract
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 specifications that include fixed effects to absorb quality differences across cities and colleges, we find that hometown and college connections are each associated with 5-9 percentage point reductions in selection probability. This "connections penalty"
is equally strong for retiring Politburo members, arguing against quota-based explanations, and it is much stronger for junior Politburo members, consistent with a role for intra-factional competition. Our findings differ from earlier work because of our emphasis on within-group variation, and our focus on shared hometown and college -- rather than shared workplace -- connections.
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1950-01-01 / 2017-12-31Time Period: Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1950--Sun Dec 31 00:00:00 EST 2017 (1950s-present)
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China
Update Metadata: 2019-11-26 | Issue Number: 1 | Registration Date: 2019-11-26
Fisman, Raymond; Wang, Yonxiang; Shi, Jing; Wu, Weixing (2019): Social Ties and the Selection of China's Political Elite. Version: 1. ICPSR - Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.3886/E115794V1