| Summary/Abstract |
This study focuses on the following important but often overlooked variable in studies investigating China’s cadre system: the city administrative level. Using a dataset covering Chinese municipal party secretaries from 2000 to 2017, this article finds that secretaries from sub-provincial cities are more likely to be promoted than those from prefecture-level cities. This result reveals that serving as a party secretary in sub-provincial cities may be a key step towards further promotion among those who become vice ministers at a young age. In addition, economic performance has a negligible effect on sub-provincial secretaries’ better promotion prospects, highlighting the existence of heterogeneity caused by the city administrative level in the promotion tournament.
|