A key issue in political economy concerns the accountability that governance structures impose on public officials and how elections and representative democracy influence the allocation of public resources. In this paper we utilise a unique set of survey data set from nearly 2450 randomly...

Purpose – This paper aims to explain why the quality of infrastructure projects in rural China differs from village to village and how project quality is correlated with project design attributes and governance factors. Design/methodology/approach – Using primary data collected by the...

A key issue in political economy concerns the accountability that governance structures impose on public officials and how elections and representative democracy influences the allocation of public resources. In this paper we exploit a unique survey data set from nearly 2450 randomly selected...

This study seeks to explain the differences in infrastructure quality across China’s villages. Using primary data on three main types of infrastructure projects in rural China, we find that a.) between-project within-village quality differences are small and project design has little...

Purpose – With the rise in the opportunity to go to college, the purpose of this paper is to identify if China's rural poor are being excluded from the university system, and if so, why. Design/methodology/approach – Two sets of the authors' own primary survey data were used: a group of...