Journal and Authors

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory（JPART）

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory seeks to advance public administration scholarship by publishing the highest quality theoretical and empirical work in the field. The journal is multidisciplinary and includes within its scope organizational, administrative, managerial, and policy-based research that improves our understanding of the public sector. JPART is committed to developing diverse and rigorous research that extends and builds public administration theory.

(Sources: https://academic.oup.com/jpart/pages/About?login=false)

Article:

Wei, Wenchi, Chengwei Wang, Wenkang Zhai, and Wenzhao Li. 2022. “Honor List” and “Shame Roll”: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Performance Feedback under Political Control. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Online first, DOI:10.1093/jopart/muac011.

Wenchi Wei, Assistant Professor, School of Public Administration and Policy, RUC

Wenzhao Li, Professor, School of Public Administration and Policy, RUC

Abstract

This article examines how the use of an “honor list” and “shame roll” as a means of performance feedback can influence governments’ future performance improvement, focusing on a prominent performance management reform implemented in Chinese local governments. We draw upon classic behavioral theories of organizations to propose testable hypotheses. The empirical analyses use 3,300 observations based on the 333 grassroots governments of the capital city of China as the unit of analysis. Regression discontinuity design estimations show that entering the honor list reduces governments’ performance improvement in the next period, while entering the shame roll helps governments improve their performance. Moreover, the level of performance improvement is higher at the cutoff for both the honor list and shame roll if governments rely more on the higher authority’s fiscal resources. This study advances a more nuanced understanding of the performance feedback effect under political control and a rigid administrative hierarchy.

Key Words  Behavioral theory of organizations, performance feedback effect, regression discontinuity design, Chinese local governments, Beijing 12345 hotline

Highlights

• China has a centralized administrative system composed of the central government and four levels of local government, including province-, prefecture-, county-, and township-level governments. The Beijing municipality covers a geographic area of 16,410.54 square kilometers (6336.15 square miles) and has a population of 21.89 million.

Figure 2. Administrative area of the Beijing municipality, regional, and grassroots governments

• Methodology: RD Design: An RD design is characterized by three fundamental components: forcing variable, cutoff, and treatment. The fundamental identification strategy of an RD design is to isolate the exogenous variation of the treatment status in the neighborhood of the cutoff and to examine the treatment effect by comparing the outcomes of interest of the units on either side of the cutoff. In this sense, RD design estimates the local average treatment effect (LATE) at the cutoff (Cattaneo, Idrobo, and Titiunik 2019; Lee and Lemieux 2010). In this research design, the units of analysis are the 333 grassroot governments. The forcing variable each unit receives is the monthly generated 12345 hotline performance score.

• Honor list: Figure 5 shows that the improvement in the performance score jumps at the cutoff for entering the honor list. More specifically, relative to those barely failing to enter the honor list, grassroots governments barely making the honor list show less performance score improvement in the next period. Similarly, figure 6 reveals that grassroots governments barely making the honor list in the current month show less performance ranking improvement in the next period.

Figure 5-6. RD plot with evenly-spaced bins (score-left and ranking-right, honor list)

• Shame roll: Figure 7 and 8 show that compared to grassroots governments positioned just to the left of the cutoff for the shame roll, those positioned just to the right of the cutoff and entering the shame roll exhibit higher performance score and ranking improvements in the next period.

Figure 7-8. RD plot with evenly-spaced bins (score-left and ranking-right, shame roll)

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Edit: Gaosheng Ye