“From past Lies to Current Misconduct: The Long Shadow of China’s Great Leap Forward”, Shuo Chen, Haoyuan Ding, Shu Lin, Haichun Ye2022-06 (politics, sociology)⁠:

• Government wrongdoings can have long-term impacts on people’s cheating behavior.

• GLF food yield over-reporting [ie. fraudulent claims of “high-yield agricultural satellites”—record-setting yields using new Communist techniques] in chairperson’s origin affects corporate misconduct today.

• A variety of identification strategies establishes that the relationship is causal.

• GLF yield over-reporting also has general impacts on other dishonest behaviors.

Using hand-collected data on yield over-reporting during China’s Great Leap Forward (GLF) period, we find that:

GLF over-reporting in a chairperson’s province of origin strongly predicts corporate financial misconduct today. Evidence from a variety of identification strategies establishes a causal relationship. We also extend our analyses to other aspects of corporate misconduct and local dishonest behaviors.

We show that GLF over-reporting has shifted social norms toward a present-day tolerance for dishonesty. Our findings suggest that wrongdoings by local government officials in the past can lead to adverse effects on people’s future behavior in the form of cheating.

[Keywords: dishonest behavior, social norms, corporate financial misconduct, yield over-reporting, Great Leap Forward]

See Also:

• The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster

• The Institutional Causes of China’s Great Famine, 1959^–₂1961_63ya

• Food Availability, Entitlements and the Chinese Famine of 1959^–₂1961_63ya

• The Impact of Class Labels on Life Chances in China

• Analysis of official deceased organ donation data casts doubt on the credibility of China’s organ transplant reform

• The Tragedy of the Nomenklatura: Career Incentives and Political Radicalism during China’s Great Leap Famine