I suggest listening to it.

Now of course, I am shocked, shocked that politicians lie a lot. But moving beyond the cliche, I think is evidence is fascinating and important.

This research follows on from a tradition which supports that dishonest people self select into public service, in countries where it is more corrupt (so the rewards seem larger): e.g. India: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20150029

And select out of of public service where it is trustworthy (e.g. Denmark): 2) https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170688

I don't think this is specific to China at all (not to say there isn't cultural variance). It just happens to be a place where we have good data.

This research adds great data, and interesting insights:

- Plagiarism 15 years ago correlated with dishonesty today, and for a small payout. This is consistent with the theory that that some people are predictably dishonest, and even when the rewards are small.

- People who plagiarize are more likely to be promoted in 5 years.

- In the subset of judges in the sample, they could detect that the judgements of plagiarists were more friendly to the high-status litigants, but only if the trial had not been live-streamed to the internet.

Spillover effects: - people who work for the "dishonest" Judges end up emulating their mentor's ruling patterns over time.

- "Dishonest" Lawyers secure higher win rates when they face "dishonest" judges.

The author concludes: Institutions are only as good as the people inside them.

My experience supports this. There are always natural incentives to cheat, and thus it behooves society to construct costs to combat this. I don't think our modern society (private or public) does this well, and thus we are proportionally led by those who exploit the system, because they succeed by selection.