RESEARCH ARTICLE Measuring Local Corruption in China: a Cautionary Tale Xiaojun Li 1 Published online: 6 November 2015 # Journal of Chinese Political Science/Association of Chinese Political Studies 2015 Abstract The intensification of corruption in China has led to a recent surge of scholarship examining the causes and consequences of corruption within the country. Nevertheless, no consensus exists as to how corruption should be measured at the local level. In this article, I evaluate the internal and external validity of three major groups of measures for local-level corruption in China, namely: perception-based measures, demand-side measures, and supply-side measures. In applying these measures to a model that examines the effect of corruption on local economic growth in China, I show that the results are highly dependent on the choice of the corruption measure. In conclusion, I suggest that future research using local-level corruption as a key variable should at least explore alternative measures to check for the robustness of the findings. Keywords Local-Level Corruption . Measurement . Economic Growth . Perception . Survey Introduction Political scientists and economists have long tried to understand why corruption is more severe in some countries than in others [1–6]. 1 These cross-national works, however, are prone to omitted variable biases caused by the enormous unobservable or unmea- surable differences in institutions and cultures between the countries. In addition, the degree and variety of corrupt behaviors may differ substantially across countries, making it even more difficult to compare the general level of corruption using standardized indices. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2016) 21:21–38 DOI 10.1007/s11366-015-9377-8 1 For sources of corruption, see [1]; for corruption and growth, see [2]; for corruption and FDI, see [3]; for corruption and inequality, see [4]; for corruption and governance, see [5]; and for corruption and trust, see [6]. * Xiaojun Li xiaojun.li@ubc.ca 1 Department of Political Science, The University of British Columbia, C425-1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada