The Returns to Office in a 'Rubber Stamp' Parliament
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2012
35 Pages Posted: 6 Aug 2012 Last revised: 5 Mar 2013
Date Written: March 4, 2013
Abstract
What are the returns to office in an authoritarian parliament? A new dataset shows that over 500 deputies to China's National People's Congress are CEOs of various companies. Entropy balancing is used to construct a weighted portfolio of Chinese companies that matches companies with NPC representation on relevant financial characteristics prior to the 11th Congress (2008-2012). The weighted fixed effect analysis suggests that a seat in the NPC is worth an additional 2.01 to 2.04 percentage points in returns and a 6.92 to 7.46 percentage point boost in operating profit margin in a given year. These micro-level findings buttress cross-national evidence and contribute to an emerging literature on the nature of representation in these institutions.
Keywords: authoritarian institutions, representation, co-optation, returns to office, China, National People's Congress, entropy balancing
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