One Mandarin Benefits the Whole Clan: Hometown Favoritism in an Authoritarian Regime
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Abstract
We study patronage politics in authoritarian Vietnam, using an exhaustive panel of ranking officials from 2000 to 2010 to estimate their promotions' impact on infrastructure in their hometowns of patrilineal ancestry. Native officials' promotions lead to a broad range of hometown infrastructure improvement. Hometown favoritism is pervasive across all ranks, even among officials without budget authority, except among elected legislators. Favors are narrowly targeted toward small communes that have no political power, and are strengthened with bad local governance and strong local family values. The evidence suggests a likely motive of social preferences for hometown.Citation
Do, Quoc-Anh, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, and Anh N. Tran. 2017. "One Mandarin Benefits the Whole Clan: Hometown Favoritism in an Authoritarian Regime." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 9 (4): 1-29. DOI: 10.1257/app.20130472Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- H76 State and Local Government: Other Expenditure Categories
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
- P25 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
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