Politics, Growth, and Inequality in Rural China: Does it Pay to Join the Party?

Economic reform is difficult to carry out because it often undercuts teh status and economic advantage of the rank-and-file officials to whom authorities must turn to implement market-based changes. Drawing on new longitudinal data collected between 1991 and 1994 in a representative rural county in Northern China, we demonstrate that local officials have not in fact lost out. To the contrary, their incomes have risen and political rents have increased during a period when reforms accelerated.