>>> Quantifying Central Committee: Approach and Applications (Victor Shih, Wei Shan, Mingxing Liu)

Created on : July 29, 2015

The Central Committee Database

Title slide: Quantifying Central Committee - Approach and Applications, by Victor Shih (Northwestern), Wei Shan (Duke) and Mingxing Liu (Peking University).
Slide 'Data: Central Committee Database': one row per CC or alternate member from 1921 to 2007, with demographic columns and each post with start and end year.
Screenshot 'A Look at the Original Data': an Excel sheet of coded members with callouts for CAC member, secretariat member, vice-secretary and mass org chair.
Slide 'Some Problems and Solutions': coding errors met by double coding, unclear pre-1949 posts, shifting bureaucracies met by a successor principle, low posts.
Line chart 'Average Birth Year of CC Members': mean and quartiles rise from about 1890 in the 1920s, flat to 1955, then step up to about 1945 by 2005.
Line chart 'Average Education Level of CC Members': 2 in 1920, a trough near 0.75 around 1930, about 1.5 in the 1950s, 0.9 in the early 1970s, then up to 2.2.
Slide 'Factional Influence Indicators': the share of CC members with birth, education or work ties to a Standing Committee member, and why the query is complex.
Line chart 'Hua Guofeng versus Hu Yaobang': Hu's share of CC supporters rises from 0.25 to 0.33 near 1980 then falls to 0.19; Hua's stays lower, ending at 0.10
Line chart 'Jiang versus Qiao versus Hu': Jiang peaks near 0.34 in the late 1990s then drops to 0.24; Qiao falls from 0.30; Hu rises from 0.11 to 0.24.
Line chart 'Chairman Mao: A Reinterpretation': the share of CC with ties to Mao holds near 0.7 to 1955, drops to 0.58, then falls below 0.4 by 1976.
Slide 'Who gets ahead in the CC?': a coefficient plot of college versus high school on change in rank percentile, below zero in 1992 then peaking in 1997.
Slide 'CCP Rewards Growth?': a coefficient plot for relative GDP growth plus one standard deviation, negative in 1982-1987 and rising to about zero after 1992.
Slide 'Does it pay to follow Hu Jintao?': one estimate for the Hu Jintao faction from 1997 to 2002, about plus 12 rank percentiles with a wide confidence band.