Why do firms publicly echo government language? Two common explanations are noise, under which alignment is payoff-irrelevant, and government consumption, under which the regime rewards aligned firms because it directly values alignment. We propose a third explanation: the regime can use alignment to screen firms for costly political support. We develop a contracting framework encompassing all three explanations and derive two results. First, absent screening, alignment cannot predict differences in firms’ mean payoff responses or costly actions when political stress materializes. Second, under optimal screening, lower-cost firms align, provide greater support, and receive more favorable treatment. We test these predictions using a transparent measure constructed from listed Chinese firms’ use of regime-specific phrases in annual reports. More-aligned firms experience larger valuation losses after an adverse political shock and provide costly support by retaining more workers during local labor unrest. Within our framework, these responses rule in a screening role and are consistent with optimal screening. [[pdf]](https://www.jorismueller.com/files/public_displays.pdf/)
** **Review of Economic Studies 92, no. 6 (2025), 3704-3740** ** Diversity can pose fundamental challenges to state building and development. The Tanzanian Ujamaa policy — one of post-colonial Africa’s largest state-building experiments — addressed these challenges by resettling a diverse population in planned villages, where children received political education. We combine differences in exposure to Ujamaa across space and age to identify long-term impacts of the policy. Analysis of contemporary surveys shows persistent, positive effects on national identity and perceived state legitimacy. Our preferred interpretation, supported by evidence that considers alternative hypotheses, is that changes to educational content drive our results. Our findings also point to trade-offs associated with state building: while the policy contributed to establishing the new state as a legitimate central authority, exposure to Ujamaa lowered demands for democratic accountability and did not increase generalized inter-ethnic trust. *[[ReStud published version]](https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/92/6/3704/7929608?redirectedFrom=fulltext)* *[[NBER working paper]](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30731/w30731.pdf/)* [[pdf]](https://www.jorismueller.com/files/statebuilding_Ujamaa_latest_draft.pdf/)
** **Review of Economics and Statistics (accepted)** ** I study how domestic political considerations influence the foreign policy choices of autocratic regimes, by analyzing China’s foreign aid. First, using contractor-level data, I document how the regime uses foreign aid projects to help maintain domestic stability: aid projects are awarded to state-owned firms in Chinese prefectures hit by social unrest, increasing employment and future political stability. Second, I find that this strategy to manage domestic unrest affects the global allocation of Chinese aid, since state-owned firms pursue projects in countries where they have prior connections. *Media coverage: Project Syndicate, US-China Today, VoxDev* [[latest version pdf]](https://www.jorismueller.com/files/chinaaid_latest_draft.pdf/) [[AidData working paper]](https://docs.aiddata.org/ad4/pdfs/WPS133_The_Domestic_Political_Economy_of_Chinas_Foreign_Aid.pdf)
We exploit the staggered introduction of 3G mobile internet in Africa to examine the effect of new communication technologies on the spread of political unrest in and across countries. We design a novel empirical strategy that allows us to separate the direct effect of mobile internet on unrest from spillovers. We find that digital communication networks lead to the spread of unrest independent of physical distance. Preliminary evidence suggests that social media constitute an important channel.