In this paper, I exploit a list of unique data sets to reliably explain the origins of, and variations in radical behaviors of local provincial authorities during the Great Leap Forward movement of China. Using excessive procurement ratio as the radicalism indicator, I compare the various performances of local leaders, who have different CCP bureaucratic hierarchy rankings. My findings show that their radical behaviors are systematically determined by a subject’s party rank. I document that these results are robust to a range of specification checks and to the inclusion of various controls. These results shed light on the exploration of the origin of numerous surges in the Maoist era. This type of radicalism probably arose because of government incentive mechanisms, and the rational cho...[ Read more ]

In this paper, I exploit a list of unique data sets to reliably explain the origins of, and variations in radical behaviors of local provincial authorities during the Great Leap Forward movement of China. Using excessive procurement ratio as the radicalism indicator, I compare the various performances of local leaders, who have different CCP bureaucratic hierarchy rankings. My findings show that their radical behaviors are systematically determined by a subject’s party rank. I document that these results are robust to a range of specification checks and to the inclusion of various controls. These results shed light on the exploration of the origin of numerous surges in the Maoist era. This type of radicalism probably arose because of government incentive mechanisms, and the rational choices of the local provincial players in China’s nomenklatura system.