Government Attention, Characteristics of Officials-in-Charge and Performance of Public Pension Funds in China: A Configuration Analysis

This article examines the nexus between government attention to pension affairs, characteristics of officials-in-charge and performance or efficiency of China’s public pension funds (PPFs). It uses the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis and data of government attention to pension affairs and characteristics of PPF officials from 20 provinces during the period of 2015-2019. The research results show that four configurations namely promotion-driven, resource-endowment-driven, government-led and seniority & localization-empowerment pathway are associated with high efficiency of PPFs. There are also four configurations namely poor professionalism, working efficiency stagnation, lack of local emotional attachment, and policy failure which lead to low efficiency. In addition, the high or low level of efficiency is the result of multiple factors working together rather than a single dominant factor. The professionalism, relevant working experience and local emotional attachment of the officials in charge of PPFs could compensate for the institutional gap due to low government attention to pension affairs. Furthermore, there exists a potential substitution relationship among factors that affect the performance of PPFs. Finally, the efficiency of PPFs is influenced by multiple complex factors that vary significantly across both temporal and spatial dimensions. Policy design should take into account of the diversity of regional economic development levels, official characteristics, and local institutional environments so that flexible and targeted management approaches are adopted to promote the efficient operation of PPFs. Policy makers should pay attention to temporal factors and regional disparities and formulate flexible and adaptive governance strategies tailored to the specific conditions and characteristics of individual provinces.