@article{5dbb8fe6491f44aa99444d1a140e2ae5,
title = "The king can do no wrong: On the criminal immunity of leaders",
abstract = "In its recent anti-corruption campaign, China removed the criminal immunity originally enjoyed by its leaders. Absent fundamental changes in the political institution—in which incumbent leaders, instead of citizens at large, select the next leaders—such a partial reform pays off only if (i) it takes place at the “right” time, (ii) it goes easy on corrupt low-rank officials, and (iii) the government is reasonably centralized. Failing any of these, such a partial reform would lead to rampant corruption throughout the government hierarchy—an outcome far worse than retaining leader immunity.",
keywords = "Autocracy, Corruption, Hostage motive, Leader immunity, Party elites",
author = "Jiahua Che and Chung, {Kim Sau} and Xue Qiao",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Chong-en Bai, Yan Bai, Pranab Bardhan, Tilman Borgers, Jimmy Chan, Pohan Fong, Maitreesh Ghatak, B{\aa}rd Harstad, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Lawrence Lau, Lixing Li, Bart Lipman, Melody Lo, Chia-hui Lu, Albert Park, Torsten Persson, Gerard Roland, Maria S{\'a}ez-Marti, Michael Song, Konstantin Sonin, Wing Suen, Mathias Thoenig, Juuso V{\"a}lim{\"a}ki, Pengfei Wang, Xi Weng, Chun-lei Yang, Xiaodong Zhu, Fabrizio Zilibotti, and participants at many seminars and conferences for very helpful comments. Yufeng Sun provided excellent research assistance. The work described in this paper is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation of China ( 71473141 ) and from the RGC of HKSAR (GRF 14501815 ). Any errors are ours. Funding Information: We thank Chong-en Bai, Yan Bai, Pranab Bardhan, Tilman Borgers, Jimmy Chan, Pohan Fong, Maitreesh Ghatak, B{\aa}rd Harstad, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Lawrence Lau, Lixing Li, Bart Lipman, Melody Lo, Chia-hui Lu, Albert Park, Torsten Persson, Gerard Roland, Maria S{\'a}ez-Marti, Michael Song, Konstantin Sonin, Wing Suen, Mathias Thoenig, Juuso V{\"a}lim{\"a}ki, Pengfei Wang, Xi Weng, Chun-lei Yang, Xiaodong Zhu, Fabrizio Zilibotti, and participants at many seminars and conferences for very helpful comments. Yufeng Sun provided excellent research assistance. The work described in this paper is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation of China (71473141) and from the RGC of HKSAR (GRF 14501815). Any errors are ours.",
year = "2019",
month = feb,
doi = "10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.11.008",
language = "English",
volume = "170",
pages = "15--26",
journal = "Journal of Public Economics",
issn = "0047-2727",
publisher = "Elsevier",
}
