How do modern fiscal states arise? Perhaps the most dominant explanation, based on the European experience, is that democratic institutions that limited the extractive power of states-exemplified by the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England-paved the way for the rise of fiscal capacity and...

Mapping coevolution -- Directed improvisation -- Balancing variety and uniformity -- Franchising the bureaucracy -- From building to preserving markets -- Connecting first-movers and laggards -- Conclusion : how development actually happened beyond China

The recent economic slowdown in the People's Republic of China (PRC) has triggered fear and even panic among global investors. In particular, observers are worried that manufacturing - the engine of the PRC's hypergrowth over the past decades - has hit the doldrums. This article shows that...

What explains the persistent growth of public employment in reform-era China despite repeated and forceful downsizing campaigns? Within China, why do some provinces have more public employees and experience higher rates of bureaucratic expansion than others? Among electoral regimes, the creation...

How do modern fiscal states arise? Perhaps the most dominant explanation, based on the European experience, is that democratic institutions that limited the extractive power of states-exemplified by the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England-paved the way for the rise of fiscal capacity and...

The recent economic slowdown in the People's Republic of China (PRC) has triggered fear and even panic among global investors. In particular, observers are worried that manufacturing - the engine of the PRC's hypergrowth over the past decades - has hit the doldrums. This article shows that...

Corruption is conventionally measured in global indices as a one-dimensionalproblem—one score for every country—a practice that has profoundly shaped ourconceptualization of corruption and its relationship with capitalism. What if weunbundle corruption into qualitatively distinct types and...

This essay examines one of the oldest and most basic problems of governance: how to pay the bureaucracy. Even as a relatively prosperous locale in China, Zouping County is not spared from budgetary pressures. Public organizations must “self-finance” — that is, generate a portion of their...

One of the most intractable problems of development is the trap of “corruption-causing-poverty-causing-corruption.” In many developing countries, petty predatory corruption is rampant because public employees receive little pay, often at rates below subsistence, and corruption in turn drives...