Incentives for bureaucracy in Russia and China

Participants from ICSID: Andrei Yakovlev, Thomas Remington, Michael Rochlitz, Alexander Libman

How do incentives for bureaucrats and state officials affect performance in countries that are characterized by limited political competition? A comparative study of Russia and China can provide a number of interesting answers to this question. Although both countries have similar communist legacies and share similar administrative structures today, Chinese state officials have generally been more effective and successful with respect to attracting FDI, upgrading of infrastructure, implementing industrial policy and promoting economic growth.
This project examines and compares career trajectories for regional officials, monitoring mechanisms and incentive structures in both countries from a range of different angles of observation. It aims at determining the drivers of bureaucratic performance in contexts where democratic control of state structures is weak or absent. We try to consider both formal and informal criteria used to evaluate regional officials, as well as to compare the current levels of centralization and their effects on performance in both countries.
Analysis is mainly built on recent decades data from national statistical bureaus http://www.gks.ru/ http://www.stats.gov.cn/ (indicators of regional development); biographical websites, e.g. http://www.chinavitae.com/ http://viperson.ru/ (governors personal characteristics) and ICSID databases http://iims.hse.ru/csid/databases. This research summarizes classic theories of public administration and aims at adjusting them to the modern situation.
 
Ongoing projects:
· Centralization, Decentralization and Bureaucratic Performance: Evidence from Russia and China (T. Remington, M. Rochlitz)
· Incentives in the Public Administration and Economic Growth: Theoretical modeling (A. Yakovlev, A. Libman, A. Yarkin)
 
Publications:
Rochlitz M. Corporate Raiding and the Role of the State in Russia // Post-Soviet Affairs. 2014. Vol. 30. No. 2. P. 89-114.
Rochlitz M., Kulpina V., Remington T. F., Yakovlev A. A. Performance Incentives and Economic Growth: Regional Officials in Russia and China / Working papers by NRU Higher School of Economics. Series PS "Political Science". 2014. No. 18.
Яковлев А. А. Стимулы в системе государственного управления и экономический рост: опыт СССР, Китая и России / Препринты. Высшая школа экономики. Серия WP8 "Государственное и муниципальное управление". 2014.
 
Conference and Workshop Presentations:
ICSID Conference "Regional Heterogeneity and Incentives for Governance", Higher School of Economics, Pushkin (Russia), May 29-31, 2014: «Regional Bureaucracies Compared: Evidence from Russiaand China»
ICSID Workshop, Higher School of Economics, Moscow (Russia), June 6, 2014: "Reforming Welfare Regimes in Russia and China: The Case of Pensions"
ICSID Workshop, Higher School of Economics, Moscow (Russia), June 10, 2014: "Interregional Inequality in Russia and China: Toward Convergence?"
A Workshop on the Political Economy of Russia, Columbia University, New York (USA), September 18-19, 2014: “Performance Incentives and Economic Growth: Regional Officials in Russia and China”