The Political Cost of Market-Oriented Reforms: Evidence from Privatization of State-owned Enterprises in China

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: How do market-oriented economic reforms affect citizens’ political attitudes in authoritarian regimes? I examine this question by studying China’s large-scale privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that started in the late 1990s. I find that layoffs of SOEs and citizens in counties exposed to more privatization express less trust in the local government. The distrust persists and has been transmitted into the next generation. Further tests suggest that the distrust is likely to be driven by bureaucratic corruption and violation of socialist commitment, instead of economic self-interests or institutional deterioration. My findings can help explain why economic reforms may erode regime legitimacy in autocracies.

Author	Lan, Xingchen
Thesis advisor	Xu, Yiqing

Subject	Economic Reform, Privatization, Political Attitudes, Authoritarian Politics, Chinese Politics
Genre	Text
Genre	Thesis

DOI	https://doi.org/10.25740/qt886yt7751
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/qt886yt7751

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Preferred citation: Lan, X. (2022). The Political Cost of Market-Oriented Reforms: Evidence from Privatization of State-owned Enterprises in China. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/qt886yt7751

Stanford Center for East Asian Studies Thesis Collection

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