Public Management Review, 18(3), 369-391.

Ma Liang, associate professor of SPAP of Remin University of China

Reform of the State Council, two government agencies in 2008 and 2012 mainly addressed big departments theme, pushing the sector consolidation and restructuring functions. Many people have high hopes for largest sector reform, then, whether this reform enhance government performance? Currently in academic area, the lack of empirical analysis based on a large sample of data to systematically assess the effects of the policy of a large sector reform.

For the "big bang" or "packaged" reform, to assess such a comprehensive large sector reform, assessment is very difficult. First, the reform is "a combination of boxing," and it is difficult to clarify exactly which reforms played a role. Secondly, at the same time it also produced a number of other policy changes, and it is difficult to identify the effect from reform. In addition, the role of reform often takes time, and choosing the right point in time to assess is also really difficult. Finally, if you cannot find the control group and the experimental reform groups to compare and contrast before and after, then any assessment of the effects of the reform cannot establish a clear causal mechanism. The recently published papers from the author try to crack these challenges.

From the theoretical view, big sector reform can improve government performance through two ways, horizontal reconstruction and vertical separation of powers to improve government performance. First, a large sector reform can promote the integration of departments and function coordination between departments to reduce friction and conflict, help to optimize business processes, policies to promote synergies and improve government efficiency. In fact, big sector reform means that top-down administrative and fiscal decentralization authorization, county government authorized can strongly improve the administrative examination and approval procedures, and improve government efficiency and service standards.

However, there are also challenges in large sector reform. For the inconsistency, county government departments are struggling to cope with the orders of superiors. To maintain the effects of the reform depends on strong political will, and reform may encounter embarrassed condition like "return after leaving". Different county government's reform policies are varied, and the combined effects are inconsistent as well. Therefore, the effect of a large sector reform is uncertain.

Since 2008, in Shunde District of Fuoshan most of the reform started with greatly streamlining the party and government institutions, and the original 41 Party and government bodies adjusted to 16 large departments, which can be described as "The broken rock shock the sky." Big sector reform "Shunde mode" broke the boundaries of party and government departments, the establishment of a large department in accordance with the functions, duties appointed deputy head of co-ordination of various departments. Decentralization and other supporting initiatives from the provincial (such as the provincial governing county fiscal reform), enable the smooth progress of reform in Shunde. December 2010, in the province of Guangdong Province, 25 counties (cities, districts) pilot projects were selected to promote "Shunde experience" and were asked to complete the reform before the first quarter of 2011. in other 120 counties (cities, districts), 25 involved in the experiment, the other 95 automatically becomes the control group, thus creating an ideal "natural experiment.”

South China University of Technology have carried out large-scale population survey every year since 2007, and the survey included residents' evaluation of the government's work efficiency, work attitude, integrity level, the level of transparency, the overall performance in the counties (cities, districts).  It can be used to measure government performance. I chose it data from 2009 to 2012, and compared the Government Performance differences of two counties (cities, districts) before (2009-2010) and after (2011-2012).

To estimate the effects of the reform, the upcoming two counties (cities, districts) subtraction in government performance gap before and after the reform, to get the "net effect" of reform with the use of double-fold difference method (DID). Studies have shown that large sector reform indeed improved government performance, particularly in two dimensions--the policy fair and government transparency. However, the reform effect is very small. In 0-10point scale to measure, control experiments county improved by about 0.2 points than the control county in government performance. Considering the large sector reform "indeed affect the whole body," the high administrative and social costs involved, the actual effect is so little to this reform.