<p> In Chapter 1 I estimate economic returns to communist party membership in China. To overcome the problem of underreporting income, I propose a new method to impute family income based on the Engel rule. Using data from China Household Income Project, I find that for party member families the underreported family incomes, the difference between the imputed and reported income, are 27% and 17% of the reported incomes in 1995 and 2002 respectively, and that non-party member families do not underreport household incomes, consistent with the assumption. The estimated rates of return to party membership based on the imputed income are two-and-a-half to four times of those based on the reported income and are also substantially larger than the previous estimates reported in the economics literature.</p><p> In Chapter 2 I examine the impact of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) on the private transfer behavior of non-coresident adult children toward their elderly parents in rural China. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey and the regression discontinuity design and difference in difference method (RD-DiD), I find no evidence that pension payment from the NRPS program significantly crowds out economic support from adult children to their elderly parents. The heterogeneous effects at different income percentiles indicate that pension payment significantly increases the probability of receiving gross transfers, the net amount of transfers as well as the likelihood of positive net transfer for those elderlies with low income. The empirical findings suggest that the NRPS program is an effective tool for general poverty reduction and social protection for the targeted elderly population. </p><p> In Chapter 3 I examine how the commute time affects labor supply. The theoretical model I construct does not offer clear-cut predictions. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, I find that commute time has no effect on daily labor supply but has a negative effect on work days per week and weekly labor supply. These findings are different from those for Germany and Spain, and are potentially related to unique features of the labor supply and the labor market in China. Further, the effect of commute time on workdays per week is stronger for workers who change jobs and for high skill occupation workers who do not change jobs. The effects of commute time on labor supply do not differ between males and females.</p>

<p> China's unique system of hiring and promoting talented people within the state, under the supervision of the Communist Party, has been held up as an important institutional factor supporting its remarkably rapid and sustained economic growth. Jointly with Professor Peter L. Lorentzen, we explore this meritocracy argument in the context of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's ongoing anti-corruption campaign. Some question the sincerity of the campaign, arguing that it is nothing but a cover for intra-elite struggle and a purge of Xi's opponents. In the first chapter of my thesis, we use a dataset I have created to identify accused officials and map their connections. Our evidence supports the Party's claim that the crackdown is primarily a sincere effort to cut down on the widespread corruption that was undermining its efforts to develop an effective meritocratic governing system. First, we visualize the "patron-client'' network of all probed officials announced by the central government and identify the core targets of the anti-corruption campaign. Second, we use a recursive selection model to analyze who the campaign has targeted, providing evidence that even personal ties to top leaders have provided little protection. Finally, we show that, in the years leading up to the crackdown, the provinces later targeted had departed from the growth-oriented meritocratic selection procedures evident in other provinces. </p><p> In addition to its motivation, I also discuss the campaign's effects on economic efficiency. The second chapter of my thesis tests the "greasing-the-wheels'' hypothesis in the context of China's residential land market. We show that China's anti-corruption campaign, aimed at removing corruption in China's monopoly land market, caused a decrease in land transaction volumes. Furthermore, not removing any form of corruption would also lead to a similar decrease. It is only necessary to remove corruption that enables real estate developers to circumvent red tape and reduce trading costs. Our findings support the "greasing-the-wheels'' hypothesis hypothesis: when an economy has a low outcome owing to some preexisting distortions, corruption could be a positive factor in that it offers a "second-best world.''</p><p>