1. Discussion of “The Determinants of Media Capture in China” (by Bei Qin, Yanhui Wu and David Strömberg) Maria Petrova, New Economic School October 28 th, Moscow

2. Summary Paper looks at coverage of 2000+ Chinese newspapers in 1998-2001 Leader mentions, corruption, disasters Question: How organizational structure of newspaper financing affects coverage? Financial independence (direct/indirect control), ownership by subsidiary Results: more financial independence => less pro- government stories, Xinhua mentions, leader name mentions, corruption coverage, disaster and accident coverage.

3. Media capture in autocracy: theoretical predictions Marginal costs of production, marginal advertising revenues (Besley Prat 2006) Mobilization needs of government (Gehlbach and Sonin 2010) Importance of incentives in bureaucracy (Egorov et al. 2009) Political control of local officials (Lorentzen 2010)

4. Potential omitted variables Literacy rates Literacy rates Characteristics of local politicians (mayor, CCP secretary) Tenure, foreign experience Single‐firm dominance or other proxy for the structure of employment Internet penetration Cluster at market (e.g. prefecture) level

5. Explanations Financial independence could be result of market conditions Market expansion increases variety => could be more newspapers that are less occupied with politics in general (potential test: look for other search terms) Availability of alternative sources (e.g. Internet) Demand-side effects (literacy, preferences) Financial independence could be the result of decisions of the government Importance of bureaucracy (e.g. budgetary spending/revenues) Economic shocks and threats of unrest Local political competition

6. Suggestions Think about determinants of financial independence Test for mechanism behind the results Construct “Bartik instrument” (local composition of employment and national industry-wide shocks)for GDP China City Statistical Yearbook, China Large Industry Development Report Look at Google data control for Internet penetration use relative frequency of search terms as proxy for demand about particular type of information

7. Chinese Search Engines

8. Google trends: regional statistics