Working Paper: NBER ID: w21963
Authors: Juan Carlos Surez Serrato; Xiao Yu Wang; Shuang Zhang
Abstract: Does bureaucratic ability predict promotion in governments? We show that self-reported performance in enforcing the One Child Policy predicts mayoral promotion in China. However, misreporting handicaps screening—a non-manipulated performance measure does not predict promotion. We show that this is consistent with a model where a government has a meritocratic objective but underestimates the imperfect verifiability of performance, rather than a model where a government is only interested in the illusion of meritocracy. Thus, despite meritocratic intentions, we challenge the notion that a successful promotion system effectively substituted for democratic institutions in explaining Chinese growth.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: D23; D73; D86; M12; M51; O12; O15; O53; P23; P26; P48
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| actual OCP performance (D29) | promotion likelihood (M51) |
| competitiveness of promotion environment (L11) | predictive power of OCP performance for promotion (L25) |
| manipulation of performance metrics (C90) | effectiveness of promotion system (M51) |
| self-reported OCP performance (L25) | actual OCP performance (D29) |
| self-reported OCP performance (L25) | promotion likelihood (M51) |