News

Book publication: Federalism in China and Russia: Story of Success and Story of Failure?

Michael Rochlitz, newly appointed professor of institutional change at the Faculty of Economics, has published the book "Federalism in China and Russia: Story of Success and Story of Failure?", co-authored with Prof. Dr. Alexander Libman (LMU Munich).

Building on a comparative study of the transition experience of China and Russia, the book examines how large federal states with an authoritarian political system attempt to solve the principal-agent problem between the central government and the regions. The authors show how the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s permitted China to develop an extremely dynamic institutional system, which in its economic performance far surpassed the Russian system of center-regional relations. The study also illustrates, however, how the recent focus on increased control brought forward by Xi Jinping has started to undermine this model of success, by making the Chinese system more similar to the Russian one. The book was published on June 28th, 2019, by Edward Elgar.