TY - JOUR
T1 - The economics of communist party membership
T2 - The curious case of rising numbers and wage premium during China's transition
AU - Appleton, Simon
AU - Knight, John
AU - Song, Lina
AU - Xia, Qingjie
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful for research support from the CCK Foundation and DfID (under ESCOR grant R7526) and for supporting the research and for comments received from referees, and from seminars and conferences at CERDI-CNRS, Université d’Auvergne, and the Universities of Gothenburg, Nottingham and Oxford.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - As the Chinese Communist Party has loosened its grip in a more market-oriented economy, why have membership and the economic benefits of joining risen? We use three national household surveys over 11 years to answer this question for wages in urban China. Individual demand for Party membership is treated as an investment in 'political capital' that brings monetary rewards in terms of a wage premium that has risen in recent years. However, this does not explain why the wage premium is higher for the personal characteristics that reduce the probability of membership. Rationing with a scarcity value for members with those characteristics provides an explanation.
AB - As the Chinese Communist Party has loosened its grip in a more market-oriented economy, why have membership and the economic benefits of joining risen? We use three national household surveys over 11 years to answer this question for wages in urban China. Individual demand for Party membership is treated as an investment in 'political capital' that brings monetary rewards in terms of a wage premium that has risen in recent years. However, this does not explain why the wage premium is higher for the personal characteristics that reduce the probability of membership. Rationing with a scarcity value for members with those characteristics provides an explanation.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=58049115524&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00220380802264739
DO - 10.1080/00220380802264739
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:58049115524
SN - 0022-0388
VL - 45
SP - 256
EP - 275
JO - Journal of Development Studies
JF - Journal of Development Studies
IS - 2
ER -