Canonical theories of bureaucracy demonstrate the need for enhanced monitoring in government hierarchies. I argue that intensive top-down monitoring may reduce the productivity of bureaucrats by frightening them away from the informal practices that they would otherwise rely on when completing daily tasks. Utilizing a unique dataset of sub-provincial inspections in China’s recent anti-corruption campaign, I identify this “chilling effect” by exploiting variation in the timing of inspections from 2012 to 2017. I show that these anti-corruption activities lower the area of land development projects proposed by bureaucrats. Causal mediation analyses with investigation data and original measures of corruption potential reveal that these effects are unlikely driven by reduction of actual corruption. Extension analyses suggest similar consequences on revenue collection and environmental regulation. Although scholars of state-building equate low corruption with effective bureaucracy, these findings present a paradox where intensive state-led efforts to lower corruption may further undermine bureaucrats’ productivity.
AcemogluD.Garcia-JimenoC.RobinsonJ. A. (2015). State capacity and economic development: A network approach. American Economic Review, 105(8), 2364–2409. http://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20140044.
2.
AcemogluD.NaiduS.PascualR.RobinsonJ. A. (2019). Democracy does cause growth. Journal of Political Economy, 127(1), 47–100. https://doi.org/10.1086/700936.
CaidenG. E.CaidenN. J. (1977). Administrative corruption. Public Administration Review, 37(3), 301–309. https://doi.org/10.974828
12.
CaiM.FanJ.YeC.ZhangQ. (2020). Government debt, land financing and distributive justice in China. Urban Studies, 58(1), 2329–2347. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098020938523.
13.
CasperB. A.TysonS. A (2014). Popular protest and elite coordination in a Coup d’état. The Journal of Politics, 76(2), 548–564. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381613001485
ChenT.KungJ. K.-s. (2018). Busting the ‘princelings’: The campaign against corruption in China’s primary land market. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(1), 185–226. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy027.
16.
ChenT.XieJ.HanL.James KungK. S. (2016). Trading favors: Untangling the web of corruption between public officials and firms in China’s land market.
17.
CochraneC. (2018). Boundary making in anti-corruption policy: Behaviour, responses and institutions. Australian Journal of Political Science, 53(4), 508–528. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2018.1509942.
18.
CrozierM. (2009) The bureaucratic phenomenon. Transaction Publishers, (Vol. 280).
19.
de GraafG.PaanakkerH. (2015). Good governance: Performance values and procedural values in conflict. The American Review of Public Administration, 45(6), 635–652. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074014529361.
DesmondM. (2008). On the fireline: Living and dying with wildland firefighters. University of Chicago Press.
22.
DicksonB. J.LandryP. F.ShenM.YanJ. (2016). Public goods and regime support in urban China. The China Quarterly, 228 (2016), 859–880. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741016001156.
23.
DonerR. F.RitchieB. K.SlaterD. (2005). Systemic vulnerability and the origins of developmental states: Northeast and Southeast Asia in comparative perspective. International Organization, 59(02), 327–361. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818305050113.
24.
EvansP.James RauchE. (1999). Bureaucracy and growth: A cross-national analysis of the effects of” Weberian” state structures on economic growth. American sociological review, 64(5), 748–765. https://doi.org/10.2307/2657374
FerraliR.KimG. (2021). How to reduce bureaucratic corruption? Unpacking Brazilian anti-corruption audits.
27.
FlindersMatthew (2011). Daring to be a Daniel: The pathology of politicized accountability in a monitory democracy. Administration & Society, 43(5), 595–619. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399711403899.
GeddesB. (1994). Politician’s dilemma: Building state capacity in Latin America. Univ of California Press. Number 25.
30.
GouldD. J.Amaro-ReyesJ. A. (1983). The effects of corruption on administrative performance. World Bank Staff Working, (2514). Paper 580.
31.
Grzymala-BusseA. (2007). Rebuilding Leviathan: Party competition and state exploitation in post-communist democracies. Cambridge University Press.
32.
HartO. D.HolmstrmB. (1986). The theory of contracts. In BewleyT. (Ed.), Advances in economic theory: Fifth world congress (Econometric Society Monographs. Cambridge University Press, (pp. 71–156).
33.
HowardP. K. (2011). The death of common sense: How law is suffocating America. Random House.
34.
HuntingtonS. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. Yale University Press.
35.
ImaiK.KeeleL.YamamotoT. (2010). Identification, inference and sensitivity analysis for causal mediation effects. Statistical Science, 25(1), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.1214/10-STS321.
36.
ImaiK.KimS.WangE. (2021). Matching methods for causal inference with time-series cross-section data. American Journal of Political Science. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12685.
37.
IvanynaM.ShahA. (2012). How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization. The World Bank.
38.
JarosK. A. (2019). China’s urban champions: The politics of spatial development. Princeton University Press.
39.
JiangJ. (2018). Making bureaucracy work: Patronage networks, performance incentives, and economic development in china. American Journal of Political Science, 62(4), 982–999. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12394.
40.
KohliA. (1994). Where do high growth political economies come from? The Japanese lineage of Korea’s “developmental state”. World Development, 22(9), 1269–1293. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(94)90004-3.
41.
KohliA. (2004). State-directed development: Political power and industrialization in the global periphery. Cambridge University Press.
42.
LaffontJ.-J.MartimortD. (2009). The theory of incentives: The principal-agent model. Princeton university press.
43.
LandryP. F. (2008) Decentralized authoritarianism in China. Cambridge University Press, (Vol. 6, p. 31).
LiP.LuY.WangJ. (2016). Does flattening government improve economic performance? Evidence from China. Journal of Development Economics, 123 (November 2016), 18–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.07.002.
46.
LipskyM. (2010). Street-level bureaucracy, 30th ann. dilemmas of the individual in public service. Russell Sage Foundation.
47.
LuiF. T. (1985). An equilibrium queuing model of bribery. Journal of Political Economy, 93(4), 760–781. https://doi.org/10.1086/261329.
48.
LüX.LandryP. F. (2014). Show me the money: Interjurisdiction political competition and fiscal extraction in China. American Political Science Review, 108(3), 706–722. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055414000252.
49.
ManionM. (2004). Corruption by design: Building clean government in mainland China and Hong Kong. Harvard University Press.
ManningB. (1964). The purity potlatch: an essay on conflicts of interest, American government, and moral escalation. Citizens Conference on State Legislatures.
52.
MarchJ. GOlsenJ. P (1995). Democratic governance. Free Press.
53.
MartinA. WLopezS. HVincentRoscignoJ.HodsonR. (2013). Against the rules: Synthesizing types and processes of bureaucratic rule-breaking. Academy of Management Review, 38(4), 550–574. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2011.0223.
OsborneD.GaeblerT. (1992). Reinventing government: How the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming government. Adison Wesley Public Comp.
56.
OtsuT.RaiY. (2016). Bootstrap inference of matching estimators for average treatment effects. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 112(520), 1720–1732. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.2016.1231613.
57.
PardelliG. (2017). Agrarian elites, economic diversification and local fiscal capacity.
58.
PeiM. (2016). China’s crony capitalism. Harvard University Press.
RadaelliC. M.AnneMeuweseC. M. (2009). Better regulation in Europe: Between public management and regulatory reform. Public Administration, 87(3), 639–654. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2009.01771.x
61.
RithmireM. E. (2017). Land institutions and Chinese political economy: Institutional complementarities and macroeconomic management. Politics & Society, 45(1), 123–153. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329216683167.
62.
Rose-AckermanS.BonniePalifkaJ. (2016). Corruption and government: Causes, consequences, and reform. Cambridge University Press.
63.
RosenbaumP. R.RubinD. B. (1985). Constructing a control group using multivariate matched sampling methods that incorporate the propensity score. The American Statistician, 39(1), 33–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2683903.
64.
RothsteinB. (2011). Anti-corruption: The indirect ‘big bang’ approach. Review of International Political Economy, 18(2), 228–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692291003607834
65.
ScheveK.StasavageD. (2012). Democracy, war, and wealth: lessons from two centuries of inheritance taxation. American Political Science Review, 106(1), 81–102. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055411000517.
66.
SelfP. (1977). Administrative theories and politics: An enquiry into the structure and processes of modern government. Taylor & Francis.
67.
SlaterD. (2010). Ordering power: Contentious politics and authoritarian leviathans in Southeast Asia. Cambridge University Press.
68.
StuartE. A. (2010). Matching methods for causal inference: A review and a look forward. Statistical Science: A Review Journal of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 25(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1214/09-STS313.
69.
StuartE. A.RubinD. B. (2008). Matching with multiple control groups with adjustment for group differences. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 33(3), 279–306. https://doi.org/10.3102/1076998607306078.
70.
ThorntonP. M. (2007). Disciplining the state: Virtue, violence, and state-making in modern China. Harvard Univ Council on East Asian, (Vol. 283).
71.
TillyC. (1992). Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990-1990. Oxford Blackwell.
72.
TiroleJ. (1996). A theory of collective reputations (with applications to the persistence of corruption and to firm quality). The Review of Economic Studies, 63(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.2298112
73.
TsaiL. L.MinhTrinhDLiuS. (Forthcoming). “What makes anticorruption punishment popular? Individual-level evidence from China. The Journal of Politics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/XTRWKG.
74.
WangE. H. (2021). Replication data for: Frightened mandarins: The adverse effects of fighting corruption on local bureaucracy. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WCB1IN.
75.
WangY.DicksonB. J. (2021). How corruption investigations undermine regime support: evidence from China. Political Science Research and Methods, 10(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2021.27.
76.
WangE. H.XuY. (2018). Awakening leviathan: The effect of democracy on state capacity. Research & Politics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168018772398.
77.
WedemanA. (2012). Double paradox: Rapid growth and rising corruption in China. Cornell University Press.
YangD. L. (2004). Remaking the Chinese leviathan: Market transition and the politics of governance in China. Stanford University Press.
83.
YangD. L. (2012). Beyond beijing: Liberalization and the regions in China. Routledge.
84.
YeoY. (2016). Complementing the local discipline inspection commissions of the CCP: empowerment of the central inspection groups. Journal of Contemporary China, 25(97), 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2015.1062620.
85.
ZackaB. (2017). When the state meets the street: Public service and moral agency. Harvard University Press.
86.
ZhuJ.ZhangD. (2017). Weapons of the powerful: Authoritarian elite competition and politicized anticorruption in China. Comparative Political Studies, 50(9), 1186–1220.
