Better Late than Never: Central Political Inspections and the Provision of Invisible Public Goods in China

Abstract This article examines how China’s central political inspections indirectly enhance municipal provision of invisible public goods. Such goods (e.g., underground pipelines, drainage systems) eludes reliable public assessment through daily observation. Drawing on Mani and Mukand, we emphasize their two defining attributes: (1) conditional evaluation (public judgment requires specific triggers like extreme weather), and (2) temporal accountability lag (delayed quality assessment). Unlike technical business inspections, political inspections prioritize provincial leaders’ political loyalty, generating cascading deterrent effects on municipal officials. Confronting heightened career risks, rational local officials strategically reallocate resources to rectify undersupplied invisible goods. Empirical analysis leveraging the first wave of nationwide inspection data confirms this causal mechanism.