Linking anticorruption threats, performance pay, administrative outputs, and policy outcomes in China

Abstract

Little is known about the effects of two prominent public sector reforms-anticorruption efforts and high-powered incentive systems-on the accomplishment of policy goals in the absence of the rule of law and in the presence of an extrinsic incentive to take advantage of corruption to achieve performance targets. This study explores how performance rewards and anticorruption efforts jointly affect administrative outputs and policy outcomes. We examine China's air pollution control policy with province-level panel data. The analysis shows that performance rewards prompt administrative outputs that are linked to the incentive structure.Anticorruption activities have small significant, positive effects on those outputs only prior to the inception of high-powered rewards, but have no significant effect on policy outcomes, regardless of the measure. The introduction of performance incentives contributes to the achievement of policy outcomes only when their measurement is subject to government manipulation.

Are State-Owned Enterprises Good Citizens in Environmental Governance? Evidence From the Control of Air Pollution in China

“…In other words, increased anticorruption efforts attenuate SOEs’ positive impact. This result comports with other empirical evidence regarding the conditional connection between anticorruption laws and their actual implementation (Langbein & Sanabria, 2017) as well as the conditional effectiveness of anticorruption activities on environmental outcomes in China (Liang & Langbein, 2018). One possible explanation hinges on the ambiguous role of government’s anticorruption agenda, which may facilitate or hinder administrative outputs and policy outcomes (Méon & Sekkat, 2005).…”

“…There are also some interesting observations related to the temporal trend and provincial indicators. First, the year indicators suggest generally continuous drops in emissions in the average province, which is consistent with the party-state’s expectation for regulatory compliance (see also Liang & Langbein, 2018). Second, in Models 1 and 2, respectively, of the 29 fixed-effects estimators, 23 and 20 are statistically significant ( p < .10).…”

“…In China, anticorruption is a strategic, political decision. In many instances, corruption may not be severely punished; instead, it may be ignored or even encouraged (Cai, 2014; Chan & Gao, 2009; Liang & Langbein, 2018; Manion, 2015; Wedeman, 2012). As Ngo (2008) observed, some corruption-based economic rents have “been institutionalized as the constitutive parts of economic governance” (p. 27), as it is a pivotal instrument to government’s operations, performance, and achievement of policy goal (Fu, 2015; K.…”

“…Corruption, in general, refers to “the misuse of public authority for personal gain,” usually in the form of bribes, kickbacks, or embezzlement (Liang & Langbein, 2018, p. 179). Corruption in the public sector can have widespread negative impact on a nation’s economic and social well-being (Bozeman et al, 2018, pp.…”

The evolutionary mechanism of haze collaborative governance: novel evidence from a tripartite evolutionary game model and a case study in China

“…Yet, some institutional arrangements between the Chinese central government and local governments have aroused widespread concern among scholars and policymakers. Some policy interventions, such as mandatory target policies and total pollutant control policies, have been widely discussed by scholars (Gao, 2015;Liang and Langbein, 2019). In recent years, the central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) system has been a significant institutional breakthrough in Chinese ecological environment administration.…”