Raising grievances to the state: The political economic effects of anti-corruption crackdowns on labor activism in China
Abstract
This paper studies how government actions shape workers’ expected returns to striking by exploiting China’s anti-corruption campaign as a natural experiment. Using a city-level dataset linking corruption inspections to strikes from 2011 to 2020, I show that strike incidents rise sharply after a city’s first high-profile inspection, driven largely by wage arrears from private firms and concentrated in the construction and manufacturing sectors. Strikes also spread through network channels, with later-treated and neighboring cities responding to inspections elsewhere. Evidence indicates that inspections weakened firm–government ties and shifted government attention, raising workers’ expected returns and revealing pre-existing grievances among workers.