Political Rents, Promotion Incentives, and Support for a Non-Democratic Regime



opportunities for vertical income mobility which was not introduced explicitly in the
theoretical model. The negative effect of this variable is in agreement with this interpretation.
It can be argued, however, that the ruling bureaucracy values an educated ‘cadre’ and,
therefore, higher education increases the chances for promotion and/or is one possible sort of
reward for the activists. This contradicts the alternative-opportunity function of higher
education. The low significance of
ST in most specifications can be, therefore, considered as
resulting from the counteraction of the two effects of the higher education on the incentives to
join the party. Finally, significant negative estimates of the
After_1961 dummy can be
explained by the elevated expectations of promotion on the part of the activists due to the
temporary increase in the rate of turnover within the bureaucracy in 1956-61, when Stalin’s
cohort of bosses was largely forced to retire.

A distinctive feature of the results is the higher significance of variables that
correspond to the negative stimuli to join the party (retail sales, enrollment in higher
education, etc.) vs. low significance of positive ones (the number of bosses and their average
salary). The contribution of the latter into the explained variation is one order of magnitude
lower than that of the former. Although the proxy for bureaucratic rents used here - salary -
accounts for only a portion of the total remuneration of the bureaucrats, there might be a more
general explanation for the relative strength of the “push” to seek for political careers, as
opposed to the “pull” of expected rents. The variables that determine the latter are far from
perfectly observable for a worker considering the choice to become an activist. The
information on the number of positions in the bureaucracy and the bosses’ salaries and
benefits is hardly public domain under any non-democratic regime. It could be acquired

37



More intriguing information

1. The name is absent
2. The name is absent
3. The purpose of this paper is to report on the 2008 inaugural Equal Opportunities Conference held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich
4. DIVERSITY OF RURAL PLACES - TEXAS
5. The name is absent
6. The name is absent
7. The name is absent
8. Growth and Technological Leadership in US Industries: A Spatial Econometric Analysis at the State Level, 1963-1997
9. The ultimate determinants of central bank independence
10. A Multimodal Framework for Computer Mediated Learning: The Reshaping of Curriculum Knowledge and Learning
11. FDI Implications of Recent European Court of Justice Decision on Corporation Tax Matters
12. Bidding for Envy-Freeness: A Procedural Approach to n-Player Fair Division Problems
13. The Structure Performance Hypothesis and The Efficient Structure Performance Hypothesis-Revisited: The Case of Agribusiness Commodity and Food Products Truck Carriers in the South
14. Regional differentiation in the Russian federation: A cluster-based typification
15. The name is absent
16. The name is absent
17. The name is absent
18. The name is absent
19. Foreign Direct Investment and Unequal Regional Economic Growth in China
20. MULTIMODAL SEMIOTICS OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES: REPRESENTING BELIEFS, METAPHORS, AND ACTIONS