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Power Distribution and Distributive Politics in Local Developmental States: Evidence from China's Subnational Land Fiscalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2022

Qi Zhang  and
Linke Hou Open the ORCID record for Linke Hou [Opens in a new window]
Qi Zhang
Affiliation:
China Center for Economic Studies, School of Economics, Fudan University, China
Linke Hou*
Affiliation:
Center for Economic Research, Shandong University, China
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: abram75@gmail.com
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Abstract

Land fiscalization in China is a local development strategy intended to tilt the distribution of interests disproportionately toward local officials. We propose that the degree of power concentration among provincial Chinese leaders affects their need for support from lower-level bureaucrats. The more that power is dispersed among provincial leaders, the more they are incentivized to dispense benefits to local officials. To test this hypothesis, we used provincial-year panel data spanning 2003–2012 to examine how power concentration among provincial leaders affected land fiscalization within their jurisdictions. The empirical results robustly supported the hypothesis.

Keywords

land fiscalizationdistributive politicspower concentrationChina
Type
Article
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , July 2022 , pp. 231 - 253
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the East Asia Institute

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