A great challenge for capitalist development under authoritarian regimes is to effectively constrain predatory behavior. Beyond existing frameworks of the dictator's time horizon and institutionalized power sharing, we introduce an alternative perspective - elite cleavage. We argue that the...

A growing literature shows robust evidence that patronage by high level politicians greatly enhanced officials' chance of promotion in the largest one-party dictatorship in the world, China. There has been few works on whether patrons' exits, even when they were retirements, had an impact on a...

Why would a politically centralized state embark on the path of economic decentralization? This Element delves into the political origin of the puzzling economic decentralization in mainland China. The authors contend that the intra-elite conflicts between the authoritarian ruler and the ruling...