Band of Rivals: Career Incentives, Elite Competition, and Economic Growth in China

Abstract

for being the world's best advisor. His patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and enormous knowledge guided me in all the time of research and writing of this dissertation. He has immensely influenced on my thoughts and attitudes toward Chinese politics and unceasingly enlightened me to seek for how to critically examine the Chinese political elites. I am profoundly proud of sharing intellectual ideas and viewpoints with him. I am also grateful that he always carefully listens to my concerns and provides the perfect remedy for them. His comments and suggestions allowed me to feel a tremendous relief as well as greatly improve the quality of my research. In addition, he provided me with countless research and fieldwork opportunities to develop my research ideas. This dissertation would not have been possible without these experiences. I also would like to gratefully acknowledge my committee members, Prof. Stephan Hag