Zeren Li

Assistant Professor

National University of Singapore

I am an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. My research focuses on business-government relations, bureaucracy, good governance, and authoritarian politics, with a particular interest in China. My work has been published and is forthcoming in the British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, The China Quarterly, and other journals.

I am the recipient of the Kellogg/Notre Dame Award for Best Comparative Politics Paper from the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. I earned my PhD in Political Science from Duke University. Prior to Duke, I obtained my bachelor’s degree from Fudan University and completed my MPhil at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Before joining NUS, I was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Leitner Program of Political Economy, MacMillan Center, Yale University.

You can contact me via email at zeren.li@nus.edu.sg.

Research

Peer-reviewed Articles

“Subsidies for Sale: Post-government Career Concern, Revolving-Door Channels, and Public Resource Allocation in China." Journal of Politics, 2024. link

Winner of Kellogg/Notre Dame Award for Best Comparative Politics Paper at 2023 Midwest Political Science Association

“Markets Under Mao: The Persistence of Market Activity in Maoist China." With Adam Frost. The China Quarterly, 2023. link

“The Decline of Factions: The Impact of Purge on Political Appointments in China." With Melanie Manion. British Journal of Political Science, 2023. link

“Public Investment As Downward Benefit Distribution: Theory and Evidence from China’s Public-Private Partnership Programs." With Daniel Z. Li and Qi Zhang. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2023. link

“Judicial Recentralization as Political Control: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis of Judicial Leader Rotation in China." With Zeyuan Wang. Social Science Quarterly, 2023. link

“Connections as Liabilities: The Cost of the Politics-Business Revolving Door in China." British Journal of Political Science, 2022. link

“Within Party Mobility and Economic Performance in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from China." With Arthur Zeyang Yu. Party Politics. 2022. link

“The Last Strike: Age, Career Incentives and Taxation in China.” With Arthur Zeyang Yu. Studies in Comparative International Development. 2022. link

“An Introduction to Procedural Rule in China’s Provincial People’s Congress." Chinese Law & Government, Vol.49 No.1, (2017): 1-4. link

Working Papers

“Olson in China: Regional Chamber of Commerce, Political Brokers, and Firm Subsidies." With Shenghua Lu, R&R at American Journal of Political Science. link

“A Privilege of the Rich? A Duality of Unequal Government Responsiveness in Urban China." With Jiawei Fu and Haibin Yan, R&R at Comparative Political Studies. link

“Favor With Fear: The Distributional Effect of Political Risk on Government Procurement in China." With Songrui Liu. link

Book Project

Red Quid Pro Quo: The Political-Business Revolving Door in China

Scholars contend that in a weak institutional context, firms enter the political marketplace primarily through bribery or by entrepreneurs running for public office. My book project challenges this conventional understanding by arguing that revolving-door channels have become a prevalent means of rent-seeking when within-government career opportunities are rare for public officials and the private sector is profitable. I propose a theoretical framework for understanding the emergence of revolving-door officials in authoritarian regimes and test this framework through a rigorous inquiry into firms in China. The core chapters of this book analyze the pattern, formation, and economic outcomes of hiring revolving-door officials. I show the distortionary impact of post-government career concerns on public resource allocation, a mixed revolving-door recruitment strategy adopted by firms seeking both political power and regulatory expertise, and the salient signaling effect of revolving-door connections on financial investors.

Data

Chinese Revolving-Door Officials Database

The Chinese Revolving-Door Officials Database contains extensive demographic and career information of over 15,000 government officials who serve on the board of all Chinese publicly listed firms since the 2000s. The database is consist of three parts:

compensation information for revolving-door officials, including salary, allowance, and stock shares;
standardized career experience information;
visualization of their political network.

The database is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (administered by American Political Science Association), the Department of Political Science at Duke University and Duke Asian Pacific Studies Institute.

Chinese Public-Private Partnership Database

The Chinese Public-Private Partnership Database provides detailed information of all Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects contracted by various levels of governments in China from 2013. The database includes:

contract details of public-private partnership projects
visualization of public-private partnership networks

Teaching

Political Economy

Business and Politics, Instructor, National University of Singapore & Yale University. Syllabus
Political Economy of China, Instructor, Yale University. Syllabus
Prisoner’s Dilemma and Distributive Justice, Teaching Assistant, Duke University.
Global Corruption, Teaching Assistant, Duke University.
World of Politics, Teaching Assistant, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Introduction to Economics, Teaching Assistant, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Quantative Methods

Probability and Regression*, Lab Instructor and TA, Duke University. Handouts and Code
Quantitative Analysis in Social Science*, Lab Instructor and TA, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Handouts and Code

Data Science

Unifying Data Science*, Lab Instructor and TA, Duke University. Handouts and Code

* Graduate-level