Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 July 2018
In this research note, we introduce a new dataset onChina's national legislators. It providesdescriptive information on one key parameter: thenature of the business owned by private entrepreneurdeputies in China's National People's Congress (NPC)from 2003 to 2017. The dataset contains informationon whether the deputy once worked as a governmentofficial, whether the deputy was a former topmanager of a state-owned/collective enterprise, andwhether his/her current company was astate-owned/collective enterprise before beingprivatized. We categorize deputies as “insiders” aslong as they stratify one of the aforementionedbackgrounds, whereas others as the “grassroots.”This dataset thus reveals two types of privateentrepreneur deputies who are significantlydifferent with regard to how they started their ownbusinesses. These findings shed new light on therelationship between private entrepreneurs and theparty-state in China.