Empirical Study on the Evaluation Model of Public Satisfaction With Local Government Budget Transparency: A Case From China

For policymakers across the world, the importance of budget transparency is self-evident. However, most scholars mainly focus on the economic performance of budget transparency while ignoring satisfaction of the public as the recipients of this policy. Therefore, this study examines the main factors of public satisfaction with the local government budget transparency based on the theory of customer satisfaction in the context of the Chinese budget transparency policy. Data for this study were collected through an online survey involving 235 participants. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to examine the proposed model. The results indicate that the budget information quality, budget information acquisition method, and public engagement are good indicators of budget transparency perceived quality, which are positively related to public satisfaction. The government image also exerts a positive effect toward public satisfaction. Furthermore, public satisfaction is also positively related to public trust toward the local government, even though the hypotheses linking public expectation to public satisfaction, and to budget transparency perceived quality are statistically insignificant. The implications of promoting budget transparency and suggestions for future work are also included in this study.