University presidents in China are appointed by and accountable to the government. Thus, presidents' career concerns may influence their admission policies. Office-seeking presidents will choose a more equitable admission policy when central government decides their career prospects, while locally connected presidents will allocate more slots to their local community to secure financial support from local government. This paper examines the effects of university presidents' career concerns on their local admission policies using a panel dataset containing the admission information and presidents' personal characteristics of 80 Chinese elite universities. I find that presidents allocate more admission slots to local provinces when the additional benefit from further political advancement...[ Read more ]

University presidents in China are appointed by and accountable to the government. Thus, presidents' career concerns may influence their admission policies. Office-seeking presidents will choose a more equitable admission policy when central government decides their career prospects, while locally connected presidents will allocate more slots to their local community to secure financial support from local government. This paper examines the effects of university presidents' career concerns on their local admission policies using a panel dataset containing the admission information and presidents' personal characteristics of 80 Chinese elite universities. I find that presidents allocate more admission slots to local provinces when the additional benefit from further political advancement is smaller, or when they are not on promotion probation so that their performance has a smaller effect on their career prospects, or when they have stronger connections to the local government.

Keywords: career concerns, admission policy, university president.