Political favoritism towards resource allocation: Evidence of grants by natural science foundation in China

Zihua Liu; Sili Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.ememar.2021.100866

Political favoritism towards resource allocation: Evidence of grants by natural science foundation in China

Zihua Liu
, Sili Zhou^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Fudan University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We study the effect of political power on resource allocation for knowledge production dictated by central planning in a non-market system. Our empirical results suggest that, compared to non-connected scholars, political connected (PC) scholars have 15.7% more allocation granted by the national Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Variations in grant allocation is related to weaker institutional environments, less reputable universities, and hard-to-value project. Additional analysis suggests that access to the NSFC fund not only benefits individual PC scholars in terms of their research quality, but also brings more high-impact publications for their affiliated institution.

Original language	English
Article number	100866
Journal	Emerging Markets Review
Volume	51
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ememar.2021.100866
Publication status	Published - Jun 2022
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Institutional environment
Knowledge production
Political favoritism
Political power
Resource allocation

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10.1016/j.ememar.2021.100866

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title = "Political favoritism towards resource allocation: Evidence of grants by natural science foundation in China",

abstract = "We study the effect of political power on resource allocation for knowledge production dictated by central planning in a non-market system. Our empirical results suggest that, compared to non-connected scholars, political connected (PC) scholars have 15.7\% more allocation granted by the national Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Variations in grant allocation is related to weaker institutional environments, less reputable universities, and hard-to-value project. Additional analysis suggests that access to the NSFC fund not only benefits individual PC scholars in terms of their research quality, but also brings more high-impact publications for their affiliated institution.",

keywords = "Institutional environment, Knowledge production, Political favoritism, Political power, Resource allocation",

author = "Zihua Liu and Sili Zhou",

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year = "2022",

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AU - Liu, Zihua

AU - Zhou, Sili

PY - 2022/6

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N2 - We study the effect of political power on resource allocation for knowledge production dictated by central planning in a non-market system. Our empirical results suggest that, compared to non-connected scholars, political connected (PC) scholars have 15.7% more allocation granted by the national Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Variations in grant allocation is related to weaker institutional environments, less reputable universities, and hard-to-value project. Additional analysis suggests that access to the NSFC fund not only benefits individual PC scholars in terms of their research quality, but also brings more high-impact publications for their affiliated institution.

AB - We study the effect of political power on resource allocation for knowledge production dictated by central planning in a non-market system. Our empirical results suggest that, compared to non-connected scholars, political connected (PC) scholars have 15.7% more allocation granted by the national Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Variations in grant allocation is related to weaker institutional environments, less reputable universities, and hard-to-value project. Additional analysis suggests that access to the NSFC fund not only benefits individual PC scholars in terms of their research quality, but also brings more high-impact publications for their affiliated institution.

KW - Institutional environment

KW - Knowledge production

KW - Political favoritism

KW - Political power

KW - Resource allocation

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85119145203

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DO - 10.1016/j.ememar.2021.100866

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VL - 51

JO - Emerging Markets Review

JF - Emerging Markets Review

M1 - 100866

ER -

Political favoritism towards resource allocation: Evidence of grants by natural science foundation in China

Abstract

Keywords

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