---
title: "Do political connections still pay after the…"
description: "Political connections are a large topic across the finance, economics and management journals, and a rising one in management. Yet only 10 of 106 recent papers on them carry a corruption keyword. More than a decade after China's anti-corruption campaign began, are connections still worth anything, and to whom?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/political-connections-after-the-anti-corruption-campaign
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/political-connections-after-the-anti-corruption-campaign.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Do political connections still pay after the anti-corruption campaign?: Political connections are a large topic across the finance, economics and management journals, and a rising one in management."
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["finance", "economics", "governance"]
keywords: ["political connections", "anti-corruption campaign"]
---

# Do political connections still pay after the anti-corruption campaign?

Political connections are a large topic across the finance, economics and management journals, and a rising one in management. Yet only 10 of 106 recent papers on them carry a corruption keyword. More than a decade after China's anti-corruption campaign began, are connections still worth anything, and to whom?

## What prompted this

In the management journals, "political connections" had 8 papers in July–September 2026 against about 4 expected (see the [management dashboard](/categories/management)). Since October 2025, 106 papers carry a political-connection keyword (46 in finance journals, 28 in economics, 23 in management, 8 in accounting). Only 10 of them carry an anti-corruption or corruption keyword, and "anti-corruption campaign" appears on 16 papers in all.

## Questions

- Did the value of connections, measured by stock reactions to officials' promotions or downfalls, fall after 2012, and has it recovered?
- Did firms swap personal ties for other channels, such as hiring retired officials as directors?
- Do connections still help with bank loans and subsidies, or mainly with avoiding scrutiny?

## Data that could help

Biographies of officials and executives (CSMAR executive data, CNRDS), the dates of announced investigations, and the bank loans and subsidies of listed firms.

## Next step

Build an event list of investigations of provincial officials since 2013 and measure the stock reactions of firms whose executives had ties to them.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| political connections | 6 | #306 | 6, 3, 10, 9, 5, 9, 8, 12, 11, 10, 10, 9, 4, 9, 8, 7, 10, 15, 10, 11, 12, 11, 12, 5, 9, 8, 15, 10, 9, 7, 7, 7, 4, 8, 9, 7, 6 | 316 |
| anti-corruption campaign | 1 | #2881 | 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 0, 0, 1, 0, 3, 0, 1, 4, 0, 2, 2, 2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 0, 0, 3, 2, 2, 2, 0, 1 | 45 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Do political connections still pay after the anti-corruption campaign?. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/political-connections-after-the-anti-corruption-campaign

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-political-connections-after-the-anti-corruption-campaign,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Do political connections still pay after the anti-corruption campaign?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/political-connections-after-the-anti-corruption-campaign}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).