The determinants and blocking countermeasures of Chinese officials ‘being preyed on’

Abstract

‘Preying’ and ‘being preyed on’ are metaphors for the exchange of bribes between interest groups and officials, which is a prevalent form of corruption in China. This paper investigates the determinants of officials ‘being preyed on’ and raises corresponding blocking countermeasures. We contribute to the literature by constructing a theoretically sound framework for investigating the determinants for this specific type of corruption, and empirically validating it, employing Logit and OLS models with individual-level data. We also develop an innovative metric to measure government-business collusion. Our findings indicate that internal factors such as the official's gender, age, education level, rank, and power type, alongside external factors like preying intensity, government size, economic openness, law enforcement, and urbanization, significantly influence the likelihood and intensity of officials being ‘preyed on’. The paper proposes suggestions for optimizing government personnel, enhancing oversight, addressing both bribe-giving and bribe-taking, and prioritizing economic development.