Juking the Stats? Authoritarian Information Problems in China

@article{Wallace2014JukingTS,
  title={Juking the Stats? Authoritarian Information Problems in China},
  author={Jeremy L. Wallace},
  journal={British Journal of Political Science},
  year={2014},
  volume={46},
  pages={11 - 29}
}
  • J. Wallace
  • Published 5 June 2014
  • Political Science
  • British Journal of Political Science
Economic statistics inform citizens of general conditions, while central leaders use them to evaluate local officials. Are economic data systematically manipulated? After establishing discrepancies in economic data series cross-nationally, this article examines Chinese sub-national growth data. It leverages variation in the likelihood of manipulation over two dimensions, arguing that politically sensitive data are more likely to be manipulated at politically sensitive times. Gross domestic… 
View on Cambridge Press
cambridge.org
176 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
4
Background Citations
56
Methods Citations
5
Results Citations
2

176 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Informal Institutions and Authoritarian Information Systems: Theory and Evidence from China
Authoritarian regimes face pervasive information problems, not only between state and society but also inside of their own hierarchies. How do authoritarian leaders address internal information…
Information Manipulation and Reform in Authoritarian Regimes
We develop a theory of how an authoritarian regime interactively uses information manipulation, such as propaganda or censorship, and policy improvement to maintain social stability. The government…
Strategic Authoritarianism: The Political Cycles and Selectivity of China's Tax Break Policy
A rich literature has noted political business cycles in democracies. We argue that in an autocracy with strong bureaucratic institutions, the pressure of evaluation and promotion has also generated…
Who's to Blame? Political Centralization and Electoral Punishment Under Authoritarianism
Does decentralization affect how voters attribute blame for poor economic performance? The question of whether political centralization ties regime leaders to local economic outcomes is particularly…
Bureaucratic Capability and Political Opportunism: An Empirical Investigation of City Officials in China
This paper empirically investigates whether public officials’ capability can mitigate their opportunistic behavior. Taking advantage of China’s unique institutional setup and adopting the method…
Strategic Authoritarianism: The Political Cycles and Selectivity of China's Tax‐Break Policy
A rich literature has noted political business cycles in democracies. We argue that in an autocracy with strong bureaucratic institutions, the pressure of evaluation and promotion has also generated…
How Much Should We Trust the Dictator ’ s GDP Estimates ?
I study the manipulation of GDP statistics in weak and non-democracies. I show that the elasticity of official GDP figures to nighttime lights is systematically larger in more authoritarian regimes.…
Friends with Benefits: Patronage Politics and Distributive Strategies in China
How does politics affect the distribution of public resources in authoritarian regimes? We argue that in systems where informal patronage networks coexist with strong career incentives, aspiring…
Open Data from Authoritarian Regimes: New Opportunities, New Challenges
Data availability has long been a challenge for scholars of authoritarian politics. However, the promotion of open government data—through voluntary initiatives such as the Open Government…
Chasing or cheating? Theory and evidence on China's GDP manipulation
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 65 REFERENCES
Retrospective Economic Accountability under Authoritarianism: Evidence from China
The relationship between the turnover of government leaders and economic performance has rarely been studied in authoritarian regimes. In mainland China the reforms of the past quarter century have…
Retrospective Economic Accountability under Authoritarianism
The relationship between the turnover of government leaders and economic performance has rarely been studied in authoritarian regimes. In mainland China the reforms of the past quarter century have…
Autocracy, Elections, and Fiscal Policy: Evidence from Malaysia
Authoritarian regimes often use fiscal policy to reward political supporters and to punish political opponents. In many authoritarian regimes with political institutions like parties, legislatures,…
Show Me the Money: Interjurisdiction Political Competition and Fiscal Extraction in China
We argue that interjurisdiction competition in authoritarian regimes engenders a specific logic for taxation. Promotion-seeking local officials are incentivized to signal loyalty and competence to…
Regularizing Rioting: Permitting Public Protest in an Authoritarian Regime
Lacking the informative feedback provided by competitive elections, an unfettered press and an active civil society, authoritarian regimes can find it difficult to identify which social groups have…
Do Authoritarian Institutions Constrain? How Legislatures Affect Economic Growth and Investment
This article explores why authoritarian regimes create legislatures and then assesses their effect on economic growth and investment. In authoritarian regimes more dependent on domestic investment…
Tragic Brilliance: Equilibrium Party Hegemony in Mexico
Why do citizens acquiesce in regimes of which they obviously disapprove? We provide a model that exhibits a general mechanism underlying the survival of one-party dominant, authoritarian regimes. The…
China's Local Political Budget Cycles
This article examines the political budget cycles in Chinese counties. The shift to a more performance-based cadre evaluation and mobility system during the reform era has created an incentive…
Sources of Popular Support for Authoritarian Regimes
All authoritarian governments attempt to control the flow of news and information to the public-but with what effect? To answer this question, we adapt an existing model of opinion formation to…
Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members in China
Spectacular economic growth in China suggests the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has somehow gotten it right. A key hypothesis in both economics and political science is that the CCP's cadre…
...
...