Swiss watch cycles: Evidence of corruption during leadership transition in China

Obesity of politicians and corruption in Ukraine in 2000–2020– Reply

“…Lan and Li (2018) argue that luxury Swiss wristwatches are a popular medium for corrupt transactions and data on trade flows of this commodity can be exploited for measuring grand political corruption. We consider trade flows between Switzerland and Ukraine of commodity code 910121 in The World Customs Organization's Harmonized System.…”

The Impacts of Anti-Corruption on Economic Growth in China

“…Lan and Li (2013) [22] found that during each five years of the replacement period of leaders and government officials, China's imports of the luxurious watches increased by three times, and it was very likely that this was a phenomenon that during the transitional period of the political powers the subjects of bribery were mainly the male officials. Qian and Wen (2015) [23] studied the impacts of China's anti-corruption policies (the anti-corruption storm since the 18th CPC National Congress) on the consumption of luxurious goods by the government officials, and it was found that such an anti-corruption policy caused the imports of such kinds of luxurious goods like jewelry, high-grade watches decreased by about 55%; but it featured no impacts on the import consumptions of some hidden consumptions (high-grade liquor and food).…”

“…The existing literature provides this paper with some initial clues. [22] discovered that during the process of change of government power every five years from 1993 to 2010, China's imports of luxurious goods tripled; recently, [23] discovered that the high-pressure policy since China's the 18th CPC National Congress reduced the imports of the luxurious goods in the general sense by about 55%, and it exerted no impacts on the imports of some hidden luxurious goods; [2] found that the investigation and punishment events announced by the Central Discipline Inspection Commission exerted significant inhibiting effects on the delayed phase of the investments of the fixed assets. The three carriages of the economic growths are investment, consumption and exports, and this paper further analyzes the impacts of the number of dismissals of officials on local investments, consumption and imports/exports so as to probe the influencing mechanism of anti-corruption on economic growth.…”

Obesity of politicians and corruption in post‐Soviet countries

“…Kaufmann & Kaliberda, 1996). Lan and Li (2018) recently proposed one objective measure of grand political corruption through the import value of luxury Swiss watches but the effectiveness of this measure faded away in recent years due to the rise of social media and Internet anti‐corruption platforms.…”

“…Lan and Li (2018) found that this measure of political corruption (but not the imports of non‐luxury watches) was correlated with leadership transitions in China (but not in Hong Kong) till 2011–2012. Lan and Li (2018) argue that the rise of social media and Internet anti‐corruption platforms in 2011–2012 made it no longer possible to measure grand political corruption through visible luxury Swiss watches. Luxury Swiss watches could still be a popular expenditure of corrupt governmental officials, but these officials are now more careful not to reveal their Swiss watches to the general public.…”