Wenchi Wei
Biographic Data
| ID | 4379037 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wenchi Wei |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wenchi |
| FAMILY NAME | Wei |
| SIGNATURE | WEI W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Renmin University of China |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5572-9398 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Awareness, Costs, and Take-up of Social Benefits: Evidence from a Field Experiment in China
This study examines incomplete participation in social benefit programs by focusing on individual income tax refund claims in China. Despite growing evidence on this issue, there remains a need to directly compare the effectiveness of addressing behavioral barriers versus alleviating administrative burdens in promoting program take-up. Moreover, when administrative burdens are targeted, it is unclear whether reducing learning, compliance, or psyc…
Fairness Perception, Administrative Burden, and Social Welfare Participation
This study examines whether and how fairness perception and administration burden relate to citizen participation in social welfare programs. We theoretically argue that both participation costs and citizens' perceptions of distributive fairness play critical roles in determining individuals' willingness to engage with welfare programs. We further propose that compliance burden (costs) may constrain frontline officials' discretion in benefit allo…
Service Outsourcing and Government Fiscal Conditions: Do Market Competition, Bureaucrat Support, and Management Capacity Matter
Scholars have long regarded government fiscal stress as a crucial factor driving public service outsourcing; however, further investigation is still needed to determine whether service outsourcing in turn helps governments improve fiscal conditions. Public choice theory suggests that outsourcing services can lead to efficiency improvement and cost savings. Nevertheless, transaction costs theory implies that the costs associated with service outso…
Political accountability and social equity in public budgeting: Examining the role of local institutions
This paper examines how local institutions in U.S. municipalities can affect budget allocations for socially disadvantaged groups, specifically focusing on eight key institutions related to electoral rules, power dynamics, and bureaucratic authority. Additionally, we develop a composite index to assess the overall level of (de)politicization within the local institutional framework. Theoretically, local institutions can shape public officials’ po…
Citizen blame attributions for government fiscal crises: Experimental evidence from China
This study conducts a randomized survey experiment to examine the impact of budgeting professionalism, environmental shocks, and fiscal transparency on citizen blame attributions during government fiscal crises. Theoretically, we distinguish between two logics of responsibility attribution: causal responsibility stresses the causal link between an actor's actions and specific phenomena; functional responsibility underlines an actor's legal, moral…
Patronage, tournament, and political reward: Evidence from the model county party secretary in China
This study focuses on the honor of Model County Party Secretary, a prestigious award bestowed by the Communist Party of China to recognize exceptional county party secretaries. Specifically, we investigate how county party secretaries' patronage networks with senior politicians and their relative economic performance compared to other political contestants can impact their likelihood of winning this honor. We collect demographic and biographic da…
Honor List” and “Shame Roll: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Performance Feedback under Political Control
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…
Local institutions and public service outsourcing: Managerial professionalism, mayoral strength, and electoral rules
This research examines how institutional contexts matter for US municipalities' service outsourcing decisions, deriving data from the ICMA's multiple rounds of surveys concerning local institutions and service delivery choices. We focus on seven pivotal local institutions that address managerial professionalism, mayoral strength, and electoral rules. Moreover, a composite index measuring the general nature of the municipal structure on a politica…
Exploring local government fiscal slack in a political-budgetary-managerial framework
This research examines U.S. local governments’ fiscal slack in a framework involving the political, budgetary, and managerial dimensions, each of which is operationalized by an indicator. We use an unbalanced panel of Massachusetts municipalities as the research sample and collect data from the state government and through five rounds of local government surveys. We find that voters’ pro-spending preferences negatively affect the size of local go…
State fiscal constraint and local overrides: A regression discontinuity design estimation of the fiscal effects
State Fiscal Constraints and Local Responses: Evidence from the Property Tax Limit Overrides in Massachusetts
This research examines the determinants of the likelihood of property tax limit override attempts and successes in the context of Massachusetts's Proposition 21⁄2. The authors apply the “Leviathan” government theory, median voter theory, and agenda‐setting theory to develop theoretical expectations and use data from Massachusetts municipalities for 1991–2013 as a sample for empirical tests. Override attempts are not randomly proposed; therefore, …
Fiscal Slack, Rule Constraints, and Government Corruption
This article examines the effect of fiscal slack on government corruption using the US states in the period from 1998 to 2012 as a research sample. Fiscal slack in the US states is commonly referred to as “rainy day funds” (RDFs) , which are intended as countercyclical reserve funds for government‐wide purposes. Theoretically , bureaucracy models predict that fiscal slack might catalyze the embezzlement or misuse behaviors of bureaucrats, who are…
Municipal Structure Matters: Evidence from Government Fiscal Performance
Evidence for the fundamental presumption that municipal structure matters for government performance is smaller and weaker than many might expect. This research contributes evidence to the literature by focusing on how municipal structure affects government fiscal performance. Municipal structure is operationalized by constructing an index on a political‐administrative scale based on seven essential structural characteristics. As the index score …
The Determinants of Municipal Structures on a Political-Administrative Dimension
Adjusting municipal structures and cross-adoption of structural characteristics between mayor-council and council-manager municipalities have been common in the United States in recent decades. This research investigates seven essential structural characteristics of U.S. municipalities and constructs a municipal structure political-administrative index. We attempt to examine the determinants of municipal structures on a political-administrative d…
Honor List” and “Shame Roll: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Performance Feedback under Political Control
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…
The Determinants of Municipal Structures on a Political-Administrative Dimension
Adjusting municipal structures and cross-adoption of structural characteristics between mayor-council and council-manager municipalities have been common in the United States in recent decades. This research investigates seven essential structural characteristics of U.S. municipalities and constructs a municipal structure political-administrative index. We attempt to examine the determinants of municipal structures on a political-administrative d…
Patronage, tournament, and political reward: Evidence from the model county party secretary in China
This study focuses on the honor of Model County Party Secretary, a prestigious award bestowed by the Communist Party of China to recognize exceptional county party secretaries. Specifically, we investigate how county party secretaries' patronage networks with senior politicians and their relative economic performance compared to other political contestants can impact their likelihood of winning this honor. We collect demographic and biographic da…
Service Outsourcing and Government Fiscal Conditions: Do Market Competition, Bureaucrat Support, and Management Capacity Matter
Scholars have long regarded government fiscal stress as a crucial factor driving public service outsourcing; however, further investigation is still needed to determine whether service outsourcing in turn helps governments improve fiscal conditions. Public choice theory suggests that outsourcing services can lead to efficiency improvement and cost savings. Nevertheless, transaction costs theory implies that the costs associated with service outso…
Citizen blame attributions for government fiscal crises: Experimental evidence from China
This study conducts a randomized survey experiment to examine the impact of budgeting professionalism, environmental shocks, and fiscal transparency on citizen blame attributions during government fiscal crises. Theoretically, we distinguish between two logics of responsibility attribution: causal responsibility stresses the causal link between an actor's actions and specific phenomena; functional responsibility underlines an actor's legal, moral…
State fiscal constraint and local overrides: A regression discontinuity design estimation of the fiscal effects
The Determinants of Municipal Structures on a Political-Administrative Dimension
Adjusting municipal structures and cross-adoption of structural characteristics between mayor-council and council-manager municipalities have been common in the United States in recent decades. This research investigates seven essential structural characteristics of U.S. municipalities and constructs a municipal structure political-administrative index. We attempt to examine the determinants of municipal structures on a political-administrative d…
State Fiscal Constraints and Local Responses: Evidence from the Property Tax Limit Overrides in Massachusetts
This research examines the determinants of the likelihood of property tax limit override attempts and successes in the context of Massachusetts's Proposition 21⁄2. The authors apply the “Leviathan” government theory, median voter theory, and agenda‐setting theory to develop theoretical expectations and use data from Massachusetts municipalities for 1991–2013 as a sample for empirical tests. Override attempts are not randomly proposed; therefore, …
Fiscal Slack, Rule Constraints, and Government Corruption
This article examines the effect of fiscal slack on government corruption using the US states in the period from 1998 to 2012 as a research sample. Fiscal slack in the US states is commonly referred to as “rainy day funds” (RDFs) , which are intended as countercyclical reserve funds for government‐wide purposes. Theoretically , bureaucracy models predict that fiscal slack might catalyze the embezzlement or misuse behaviors of bureaucrats, who are…
Municipal Structure Matters: Evidence from Government Fiscal Performance
Evidence for the fundamental presumption that municipal structure matters for government performance is smaller and weaker than many might expect. This research contributes evidence to the literature by focusing on how municipal structure affects government fiscal performance. Municipal structure is operationalized by constructing an index on a political‐administrative scale based on seven essential structural characteristics. As the index score …
Exploring local government fiscal slack in a political-budgetary-managerial framework
This research examines U.S. local governments’ fiscal slack in a framework involving the political, budgetary, and managerial dimensions, each of which is operationalized by an indicator. We use an unbalanced panel of Massachusetts municipalities as the research sample and collect data from the state government and through five rounds of local government surveys. We find that voters’ pro-spending preferences negatively affect the size of local go…
State fiscal constraint and local overrides: A regression discontinuity design estimation of the fiscal effects
Local institutions and public service outsourcing: Managerial professionalism, mayoral strength, and electoral rules
This research examines how institutional contexts matter for US municipalities' service outsourcing decisions, deriving data from the ICMA's multiple rounds of surveys concerning local institutions and service delivery choices. We focus on seven pivotal local institutions that address managerial professionalism, mayoral strength, and electoral rules. Moreover, a composite index measuring the general nature of the municipal structure on a politica…
Honor List” and “Shame Roll: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Performance Feedback under Political Control
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…
Service Outsourcing and Government Fiscal Conditions: Do Market Competition, Bureaucrat Support, and Management Capacity Matter
Scholars have long regarded government fiscal stress as a crucial factor driving public service outsourcing; however, further investigation is still needed to determine whether service outsourcing in turn helps governments improve fiscal conditions. Public choice theory suggests that outsourcing services can lead to efficiency improvement and cost savings. Nevertheless, transaction costs theory implies that the costs associated with service outso…
Political accountability and social equity in public budgeting: Examining the role of local institutions
This paper examines how local institutions in U.S. municipalities can affect budget allocations for socially disadvantaged groups, specifically focusing on eight key institutions related to electoral rules, power dynamics, and bureaucratic authority. Additionally, we develop a composite index to assess the overall level of (de)politicization within the local institutional framework. Theoretically, local institutions can shape public officials’ po…
Citizen blame attributions for government fiscal crises: Experimental evidence from China
This study conducts a randomized survey experiment to examine the impact of budgeting professionalism, environmental shocks, and fiscal transparency on citizen blame attributions during government fiscal crises. Theoretically, we distinguish between two logics of responsibility attribution: causal responsibility stresses the causal link between an actor's actions and specific phenomena; functional responsibility underlines an actor's legal, moral…
Patronage, tournament, and political reward: Evidence from the model county party secretary in China
This study focuses on the honor of Model County Party Secretary, a prestigious award bestowed by the Communist Party of China to recognize exceptional county party secretaries. Specifically, we investigate how county party secretaries' patronage networks with senior politicians and their relative economic performance compared to other political contestants can impact their likelihood of winning this honor. We collect demographic and biographic da…
Awareness, Costs, and Take-up of Social Benefits: Evidence from a Field Experiment in China
This study examines incomplete participation in social benefit programs by focusing on individual income tax refund claims in China. Despite growing evidence on this issue, there remains a need to directly compare the effectiveness of addressing behavioral barriers versus alleviating administrative burdens in promoting program take-up. Moreover, when administrative burdens are targeted, it is unclear whether reducing learning, compliance, or psyc…
Fairness Perception, Administrative Burden, and Social Welfare Participation
This study examines whether and how fairness perception and administration burden relate to citizen participation in social welfare programs. We theoretically argue that both participation costs and citizens' perceptions of distributive fairness play critical roles in determining individuals' willingness to engage with welfare programs. We further propose that compliance burden (costs) may constrain frontline officials' discretion in benefit allo…
Local Government Finance and Decentralization (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Public Administration (8 works) · Public Administration (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Public economics (7 works) · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy (6 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (6 works)