Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Fierce competition among Chinese county-level governments has substantially increased urban stratification through public service provision and housing markets. The changing intra-city administrative structure deserves scholars’ attention for equal distribution of public services within Chinese cities during the massive urbanization process. Research about local government structure argues that inter-jurisdictional competition forces most local governments spend more on developmental programs to attract business investments. Redistributive programs are minimized to avoid attracting low-income immigrating. Since these perspectives are mainly based on experiences of “free” housing markets and unrestricted mobility of residents under western democratic systems, they do not speak directly to a transitional‐socialist economy with very unique and complicated political and household registration systems like China. Building on the interdisciplinary literature of public choice and cadre promotion theory, we propose that inter-jurisdictional competition reduces redistributive expenditure under the transitional administrative and fiscal system. Using data from China cities statistics from 1995 to 2007, this study employs multilevel modeling with repeated measures to examine redistributive expenditure is contingent on government structure and socioeconomic characteristics. The results will reveal the extent to which market forces, local government structure, and other social economic factors have transformed public service provision among Chinese county-level governments. The findings will advance our understanding of local governments in equal provision of public services within fasting growing Chinese cities.