The administrative monopoly in China’s economic transition

Corruption in transition economies has become the very focus of many recent discussions on politics and economics. However, the existing research has not taken full account of the experience of the gradual transition countries, especially China, and the incentives for rent creation in the transition process. Based on existing studies in this field, this paper addresses a new category of corruption in transition economies. In the context of the rent seeking theory, the authors examine what they regard as a unique type of corruption in China—administrative monopoly (AM), and outline its essence, causes, forms, features, the scale of the rent created, and the dissipation of the rent.