Municipal Administrative Service Center: A New Institutional Economics Perspective

In recent years, Chinese local governments have set up municipal administrative service centers, in order to improve administrative efficiency, improve the investment environment and enhance the quality of public services. This paper aims to use the theory of institutional change and the theory of supply and demand of institution to analyze the reason of the emergence of the municipal administrative service center and its existing problems from the new institutional economics perspective. First of all, the paper sorts out the analytical framework of related theories, and then reviews the evolution of the municipal administrative service centers in recent years briefly and especially points out that municipal administrative service centers is research object in this paper, and then use the analytical framework of supply and demand of institution to explain the cause of evolution. Secondly, the paper summarizes the typical problems of the municipal administrative service centers. Based on the theory of institutional change and the theory of supply and demand of institution, the paper points out that the incompatibility of informal institution and the formal institution, the lack of effective demand, the constraint of existing institutional arrangements and vested interests, the constraint of social scientific knowledge are the main factors that restrict the further development of the centers and then give the proposals on the above analysis. Finally, the paper points out that as the exclusion of the impeditive factors of institutional demand and supply, the centers will gradually develop into the "Executive Bureau" which has comprehensive approval functions.