Replication Data for: The Price of Probity: Anticorruption and Adverse Selection in the Chinese Bureaucracy

Fighting corruption is often seen as a crucial step toward building better institutions, but how it affects political selection remains less well understood. We argue that in systems where corruption functions as an informal incentive for government to attract talent, anticorruption initiatives that curb rent-seeking opportunities may unintentionally weaken both the quality and the representativeness of the bureaucracy. We test this argument in China using an original nationwide survey of government officials and an identification strategy that exploits exogenous variations in enforcement levels created by the recent anticorruption campaign. We find that intensified enforcement has generated two potentially negative selection effects: a deterrence effect that lowers the average ability of newly recruited bureaucrats, and a compositional effect that discourages the entry of lower-class individuals in favor of those who are affluent and well-connected. These findings highlight important hidden human capital costs of corruption elimination in developing countries.

反腐常被视为构建更完善公共治理机构的关键举措，但其对政治遴选的影响却鲜少被深入理解。我们提出，在腐败可作为政府吸引人才的非正式激励机制的体系中，旨在遏制寻租空间的反腐举措，可能会在无意间削弱官僚体系的整体质量与代表性。我们依托针对中国政府官员的原创性全国性调研，以及利用近期反腐运动所带来的执法力度外生差异的识别策略，对上述论点进行了检验。研究发现，执法力度的强化产生了两类潜在的负面遴选效应：一是威慑效应，即降低了新入职官僚的平均能力水平；二是结构效应，即抑制了底层阶层群体的进入，转而偏向家境优渥、人脉广泛的求职者。这些研究结果揭示了发展中国家在反腐进程中潜藏的重要人力资本成本。