Local Cadres, Dialects, and Economic Performance in China

Junbing Zhu () and Theocharis N. Grigoriadis ()
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Junbing Zhu: School of Economics, Henan University
Theocharis N. Grigoriadis: Department of Economics and Institute for East European Studies, Freie Universitüt Berlin

Chapter Chapter 19 in The Palgrave Handbook of Economics and Language, 2026, pp 531-557 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This study examines the impact of dialectal diversity on economic performance, conditioned by variations in prefecture-level state capacity in Chinese regions. We treat Chinese Communist Party (CCP) governance during the revolutionary period and the share of local cadres in local governments as alternative proxies of local state capacity. We show that diversity tends to have a negative effect on economic performance in prefecture cities in eastern China, whereas historical CCP governance inhibits the negative effect of dialectal diversity. In other regions, dialectal diversity shows a robust positive effect and historical CCP governance has no significant influence. The impact of longer CCP governance on the empirical relationship between dialectal diversity and prefecture-level economic performance is reinforced by the share of local cadres.

Keywords: Diversity; Development; Communism; Governance; Local cadres; Economic performance; China; Dialects; State capacity; Revolutionary war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-88240-1_19

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-88240-1_19

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