Under President Putin and especially after 2003 Russia started to move to some model of state capitalism characterized by very limited political competition, weak NGO sector and independent mass media as well as absence of independent courts. As a result since mid 2000s Russian model of governance from formal point of view became much closer to Chinese one (especially taking into account trends to centralization of fiscal revenues and development of redistribution policy in China since late 1990s). One of expected outcomes for both countries is connected with high level of corruption which is typical for state capitalism models. Nevertheless even after global financial crisis 2008 - 2009 China could support high economic growth but Russia clearly failed to meet this challenge. We assume that these differences can be explained by the design of incentive system in public administration in both countries. We consider previous theories (including fiscal federalism under political centralization, U-form vs. M-form of governance structure etc.) and propose new one based on analysis of composition of executive and control functions at different levels in administrative hierarchy in China in Russia as well as in the USSR.
Keywords: economic development, control authority, excessive regulation, incentives in hierarchy, economic systems.