Regional favouritism in Chinese university admissions

Abstract

We study the effect of favouritism via hometown ties of high-ranking administrators in universities on China's university admissions. By constructing a gravity specification model and collecting the data on inter-provincial admissions of nearly 1300 Chinese undergraduate universities between 2008 and 2015 and hometown information of the university's top administrators, such as the President or Party Secretary, we show that regional favouritism is prevalent in college enrolment. It is estimated that hometown ties of either the President or Secretary of the Party committee in a university increase the enrolments by almost 11% through admitting students with low entrance examinations scores from their hometowns. Interestingly, the hometown tie effects disappeared after President Xi's launched the anti-corruption campaign in 2013 and we proved the hometown favouritism in university admissions is a form of corruption through a series of ways.