What motivates non-democratic leadership: Evidence from COVID-19 reopenings in China

Raymond Fisman; Hui Lin; Cong Sun; Yongxiang Wang; Daxuan Zhao

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104389

What motivates non-democratic leadership: Evidence from COVID-19 reopenings in China

Raymond Fisman, Hui Lin, Cong Sun, Yongxiang Wang, Daxuan Zhao

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We examine Chinese cities’ COVID-19 reopening plans as a window into governments’ economic and social priorities. We measure reopenings based on official government news announcements, and show that these are predicted by citizen discontent, as captured by Baidu searches for terms such as “unemployment” and “protest” in the prior week. The effects are particularly strong early in the epidemic, indicating a priority on initiating economic recovery as early as possible. These results indicate that even a non-democratic government may respond to citizen concerns, possibly to minimize dissent.

Original language	English
Article number	104389
Pages (from-to)	1-9
Number of pages	9
Journal	Journal of Public Economics
Volume	196
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2021.104389
Publication status	Published - Apr 2021
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Corrigendum to the article published in Journal of Public Economics, Volume 203, November 2021, Pages 104517.

Keywords

Bureaucratic incentives
Unrest
Non-democracy
China
COVID-19

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title = "What motivates non-democratic leadership: Evidence from COVID-19 reopenings in China",

abstract = "We examine Chinese cities{\textquoteright} COVID-19 reopening plans as a window into governments{\textquoteright} economic and social priorities. We measure reopenings based on official government news announcements, and show that these are predicted by citizen discontent, as captured by Baidu searches for terms such as “unemployment” and “protest” in the prior week. The effects are particularly strong early in the epidemic, indicating a priority on initiating economic recovery as early as possible. These results indicate that even a non-democratic government may respond to citizen concerns, possibly to minimize dissent.",

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AU - Sun, Cong

AU - Wang, Yongxiang

AU - Zhao, Daxuan

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AB - We examine Chinese cities’ COVID-19 reopening plans as a window into governments’ economic and social priorities. We measure reopenings based on official government news announcements, and show that these are predicted by citizen discontent, as captured by Baidu searches for terms such as “unemployment” and “protest” in the prior week. The effects are particularly strong early in the epidemic, indicating a priority on initiating economic recovery as early as possible. These results indicate that even a non-democratic government may respond to citizen concerns, possibly to minimize dissent.

KW - Bureaucratic incentives

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KW - Non-democracy

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What motivates non-democratic leadership: Evidence from COVID-19 reopenings in China

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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