Political Incentives in China's Clean Energy Leap

This paper draws on an extensive, newly compiled multi-level dataset to examine the political economy behind China’s unprecedented surge in renewable energy development. We leverage detailed records on over 8,000 solar and wind projects connected to China’s National Grid, comprehensive data on coal plants, and 3.9 million government procurement contracts and PPP agreements. Crucially, we also integrate biographical information on ministerial-level officials, enabling us to trace the links between elite political incentives and large-scale project approvals. By geo-coding renewable installations and examining variations in project scale, timing, and ownership structure, we assess how career trajectories, institutional affiliations, and broader political mandates shape local renewable outcomes. Our theoretical framework posits that local officials strategically leverage their connections with central ministries to secure renewable energy projects aligned with national priorities. Since these clean energy projects, largely constructed by central state-owned enterprises, deliver lucrative inflows of capital, jobs, and infrastructural upgrading, local leaders have strong incentives to court the approval and involvement of influential central agencies. We hypothesize that localities with closer ministerial ties and well-placed officials are better positioned to capture these windfall opportunities, thereby accelerating their own energy transition and development. By probing these relational dynamics, our study sheds light on how central-local networks and institutional linkages enable the proliferation of green industrial policies, ultimately revealing the micro-foundations of China’s renewable energy boom.