American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Subjective Performance Evaluation, Influence Activities, and Bureaucratic Work Behavior: Evidence from China
American Economic Review
vol. 113,
no. 3, March 2023
(pp. 766–99)
Abstract
Subjective performance evaluation could induce influence activities: employees might devote too much effort to pleasing their evaluator, relative to working toward the goals of the organization itself. We conduct a randomized field experiment among Chinese local civil servants to study the existence and implications of influence activities. We find that civil servants do engage in evaluator-specific influence to affect evaluation outcomes, partly in the form of reallocating work efforts toward job tasks that are more important and observable to the evaluator. Importantly, we show that introducing uncertainty about the evaluator's identity discourages evaluator-specific influence activities and improves bureaucratic work performance.Citation
de Janvry, Alain, Guojun He, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Shaoda Wang, and Qiong Zhang. 2023. "Subjective Performance Evaluation, Influence Activities, and Bureaucratic Work Behavior: Evidence from China." American Economic Review 113 (3): 766–99. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211207Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D73 Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
- H83 Public Administration; Public Sector Accounting and Audits
- J45 Public Sector Labor Markets
- M54 Personnel Economics: Labor Management
- O17 Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
- O18 Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
- P25 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics