Beyond Carrot and Stick : Dissecting the Enforcement of China's Population Policies

China's birth control in the late 20th century remains one of the most controversial social experiments in history, with profound and persistent impacts. This paper unmasks the underlying incentives for various population policies and their enforcement across time and space. I undertake a batter of cross-sectional and panel model examinations to show that in places with historically high fertility rates, subnational policymakers defer birth quota tightening, enforce milder sanctions for breach, and are more likely to loosen the quota. This indicates that despite its draconian enforcement, local bureaucrats compromised in enacting policies to satisfy their indigenous people's childbearing demand