发布时间： 来源：人大经济论坛

1 论文标题
Does It Pay to Be a Cadre? Estimating the Returns to Being a Local Official in Rural China
2 作者信息
Jian Zhang
John Giles
Scott Rozelle
3 出处和链接（比如，NBER working paper No.11000）
http://ftp.iza.org/dp6653.pdf IZA DP No. 6653 June 2012 （forthcoming in the Journal of Comparative Economics）
4 摘要
Recruiting and retaining leaders and public servants at the grass-roots level in developing
countries creates a potential tension between providing sufficient returns to attract talent and
limiting the scope for excessive rent-seeking behavior. In China, researchers have frequently
argued that village cadres, who are the lowest level of administrators in rural areas, exploit
personal political status for economic gain. Much existing research, however, compares the
earnings of cadre and non-cadre households in rural China without controlling for unobserved
dimensions of ability that are also correlated with success as entrepreneurs or in nonagricultural activities. The findings of this paper suggest a measurable return to cadre status,
but the magnitudes are not large and provide only a modest incentive to participate in villagelevel government. The paper does not find evidence that households of village cadres earn
significant rents from having a family member who is a cadre. Given the increasing returns to
non-agricultural employment since China‘s economic reforms began, it is not surprising that
the returns to working as a village cadre have also increased over time. Returns to cadrestatus are derived both from direct compensation and subsidies for cadres and indirectly
through returns earned in off-farm employment from businesses and economic activities
managed by villages.