Promotion incentive for China’s political elites is one of the driving forces behind decades of rapid economic growth. During this webinar Renmin University’s Huihua Nie will present a paper investigating the career experiences of these political elites. As part of his research Nie constructed an ability type index and then classified local political elites into two categories: generalists and specialists. Nie and his research partners manually collected the resumes of China’s provincial standing committees from 1992 through 2016 and found the higher the ability type index measuring “generalists,” the more likely the political elites will be promoted to generalist positions. In other words, generalists and specialists each have their own promotion track, the so-called “dual-track system.” Second, the mismatch of needed skills (promotion of specialists to generalist positions or vice versa) can hinder economic growth.
This event is co-sponsored by the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues and the Department of Government.
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Huihua Nie is a professor at the School of Economics at Renmin University of China. He previously served as the deputy director of the research department at Renmin University of China; executive vice dean of the National Academy of Development and Strategy, a national high-end think tank in China; and as the associate editor of the international journal China Economic Review. His research focuses on government-business relations, the theory of the firm, and institutional economics.