Strategic Authoritarianism: The Political Cycles and Selectivity of China's Tax‐Break Policy

A rich literature has noted political business cycles in democracies. We argue that an autocracy with strong bureaucratic institutions, the pressure of evaluation and promotion also generated tax-break policies. Furthermore, timing content have driven leaders to use tax breaks strategically build economic performance, producing distributional consequences. Combining panel data 1,510,153 firm-year observations, city-leader from 1995 2007, field interviews, we find rates dropped for most firms during mayors’ turnover years. In first year office, is, “busy year,” mayors needed prioritize large especially foreign firms. Small domestic private bore cost tenure cycles. last mayors' tenure, “dust-settled” year, there was little incentive seek promotion, even important could not gain attention.