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Influence Activities and Bureaucratic Performance: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment in China

Author

Listed:
  • Alain de Janvry

    (Department of. Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley)

  • Guojun He

    (Division of Social Science, Division of Environment and Sustainability, Department of Economics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.)

  • Elisabeth Sadoulet

    (Department of. Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley)

  • Shaoda Wang

    (Corresponding Author, Department of Economics and EPIC, University of Chicago.)

  • Qiong Zhang

    (School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China.)

Abstract

Subjective performance evaluation is widely used by firms and governments to provide work incentives. However, delegating evaluation power to senior leadership could induce influence activities: agents might devote much efforts to please their supervisors, rather than focusing on productive tasks that benefit their organizations. We conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment among Chinese local government employees and provide the first rigorous empirical evidence on the existence and implications of influence activities. We find that state employees are able to impose evaluator-specific influence to affect evaluation outcomes, and that this process could be partly observed by their co-workers. Furthermore, introducing uncertainty in the identity of the evaluator, which discourages evaluator-specific influence activities, can significantly improve the work performance of state employees.Keywords: Alternative data, Satellite Imagery, Asset price impact, Macroeconomic Estimates

Suggested Citation

  • Alain de Janvry & Guojun He & Elisabeth Sadoulet & Shaoda Wang & Qiong Zhang, 2019. "Influence Activities and Bureaucratic Performance: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment in China," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2019-69, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Sep 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:hku:wpaper:201969
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    subjective evaluation; civil servants; work performance; incentive; favoritism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • F63 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Economic Development

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