Gains and losses under economic reform: Understanding individual experience and the preference for state intervention in transition China

ABSTRACT

Chinese citizens lived under a state socialist regime with heavy state intervention from 1957 to 1978, after which time China began its market oriented economic reforms. This paper investigates whether personal experiences, particularly economic and political experiences are related to Chinese citizens’ preference for state intervention during the transition period. Based on the World Value Survey data collected between 2017 and 2018, I found that Chinese people who have experienced negative economic shocks since market reform are more likely to support government redistribution as opposed to economic liberalization. Individual attitudes toward the role of the state are also associated with experiences of affiliation with the state sector, and an instrumental variable analysis shows that state sector affiliation has a causal effect on redistribution preference. The findings contribute to studies of redistribution preference formation in a country where market forces and Communist Party rule coexist, as well as revealing how the primary political goal shapes the redistribution preference of individuals under an authoritarian regime.

KEYWORDS:

• China’s economic reform
• Economic experience
• Political experience
• Redistribution preference
• State socialist legacy
• Instrumental variable

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for taking the time and making the effort to read the manuscript. The original version of this article was presented at the 2022 MPSA annual meeting, and I thank participants in the Lighting Talk “Domestic and Foreign Policy of China” for helpful comments and suggestions. Dr. Jing Xu was also very helpful with methodology suggestions. The main idea for this article was inspired by my dissertation, with my Ph.D. advisor’s encouragement, I developed the idea and finally finished this article. Unfortunately, my advisor, Professor Boike Rehbein, passed away unexpectedly in June 2022. I dedicate this article to him for all of his help in the early stages of my academic career.

Data availability statement

The data sets that are associated with the paper can be found on the following websites: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp; http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2018/indexeh.htm

Notes

¹ The WVS introduction: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp.

² The first two data points (1 and 2) are assigned to the category “strongly disagree,” the second two data points (3 and 4) are assigned to the category “disagree,” the third two data points (5 and 6) are assigned to the category “in the middle,” the fourth two data points (7 and 8) are assigned to the category “agree,” and the final two data points (9 and 10) are assigned to the category “strongly agree.”

³ The original questionnaire item in the WVS is “whether you are a member, an active member, an inactive member or not a member of that type of a political party.” Because China has a one-party ruling system, the political party here presumably refers to the Communist Party (see also: Huang, 2019).

⁴ For this analysis, I used data from the China Statistical Yearbook 2018 on the length of rail lines by province.

⁵ Since Google is blocked, Baidu is the most widely used search engine in mainland China.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.