Historical trajectories of local government in India and China

Andrew Batson · 29 Aug 2025

Andrew Batson did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
China's stronger local-level state capacity than India's helps explain their diverging long-run economic performance.

Their wordsOn this measure, state capacity at the local level looks much stronger in China than in India, which helps explain some of the long-running economic differences between them.
Our reading
Competition and experimentation among local officials has been a major driver of China's economic growth.
Mental modelIncentives

Their wordsChina does much better in basic service delivery-and its local governments have also played a very obvious and important in driving growth, thanks to the competition and experimentation among local officials driven to develop their jurisdictions.

Keep reading

The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.