Singular or plural? Administrative burden and doing business in China

Can innovative urban design optimize the business environment? Quasi-natural experimental evidence from China

“…This approach is conducive to optimizing market regulation and service level, lowering the access threshold, enabling market players to enter the market equally according to the law, stimulating market vitality, and reducing the distortion of economic activities [ 32 ]. An indepth study of the internal mechanism of ICP policy shows that technological progress, institutional norms, governmental efficiency, and information flow mechanisms shape a better BE [ 27 , 86 ], effectively integrating the fragmented knowledge of innovation policies affecting BE. The effects of ICP policy to optimize BE are heterogeneous.…”

“…High-quality government bureaucracy and implementation of policies and institutions are particularly critical to optimizing regional BE [ 25 ]. Reducing transaction costs and administrative burdens through administrative reforms, integrity building, and tax regulation has become a consensus for creating a favorable market environment [ 26 , 27 ]. In the context of digital government, technology-enabled enhancement of government services and administrative efficiency is also an important direction for BE reform [ 28 ].…”

“…Overbureaucratization and overcomplexity in the public sector may lead to inefficient allocation of administrative resources, and the ensuing factors, such as higher systemic transaction costs and administrative burdens, may impair the quality of urban BE [ 27 , 58 ]. From the perspective of transaction cost theory, cumbersome administrative procedures cause high institutional transaction costs and have the potential to breed rent seeking and corruption, which affects the innovative and entrepreneurial activities of market players [ 59 ].…”

Recent developments and future directions of administrative service reform in China

“…Lastly, the FGF reforms have a continuous improvement focus, aimed to reduce administrative burdens in state-citizen interaction: the views and demands of citizens and businesses are central to the reform agenda (Liao 2020). Feedback from clients is used in local government performance ratings and rankings, and local officials are incentivised to meet the demands of citizens and businesses.…”

Does Administrative Reform Improve the Business Environment in China? A Mixed-Method Analysis Based on Administrative Burden Theory

“…Given that the interaction and linkage with the government are essential factors for any company, the administrative burden theory offers us a unique theoretical perspective to tackle this research question. Over the past five years, governments and scholars have developed a great interest in administrative burden (Petersen, Hansen and Houlberg, 2023;Fuchong, 2022;Baekgaard, Moynihan and Thomsen, 2021). The administrative burden is the key element in the interaction of citizens that consists of learning cost, compliance cost, and psychological cost (Moynihan, Herd and Harvey, 2015).…”