编号：E-2025-12-5
题目：Culture and Bureaucratic Behavior: Evidence from China
作者：Yongwei Nian , Cindy Xinyi Shen , Zhengyang Zhou
联系方式：Yongwei Nian, yongweinian@gmail.com
摘要：We study political corruption through a cultural lens. Drawing on Confucianism that flourished in Imperial China emphasizing virtuous leadership, we find lower corruption in modern governments led by mayors with greater ancestral exposure to such culture. For causal identification, we leverage (a) the irrelevance of Confucianism in leader selection and allocation and (b) the exogeneity in Confucian academy location choices. We provide support for the virtuous leadership mechanism and rule out alternative explanations, including changes in formal institutions, education inputs, or government revenue. We further show that the persistence of this effect stems from the intergenerational transmission of cultural norms.
