Recently, the co-authored paper Saving an Old Regime with New Elites? The Unintended Effects of Co-opting Foreign-Educated Councilors in China by Associate Professor Sun Wei of the Department of Resource and Environmental Economics at the School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, was published in Journal of Development Economics, an international Class I economics journal.
Abstract
How does the co-optation of foreign-educated elites influence local stability? This study exploits a quasi-experimental setting created by the establishment of provincial Consultative Bureaus in China in 1909 to examine the political consequences of integrating Japan-educated returnees into local governance. Using an original, prefecture-by-month panel dataset across 262 prefectures from 1901 to 1911, we find that co-opting foreign-educated elites produced unintended effects: it significantly reduced revolutionary armed struggles (the "revolution effect"), but simultaneously increased peasant revolts (the "revolt effect"). Mechanism analysis suggests that returnees advocated reforms that intensified local tax burdens—particularly in economically strained regions—provoking peasant revolts. Our findings underscore a critical trade-off in the modernization efforts of autocratic regimes: when elites' reformist ambitions outpace the adaptive capacity of society, well-intended reforms can generate unintended backlash.
Author Biography
Sun Wei is an Associate Professor at the School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Her main research areas are environmental economics, development economics, and applied microeconomics. Her related research findings have been published in academic journals such as Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and Journal of Regulatory Economics.
