Beyond GDP: how performance evaluation reform unlocks the public service promise of digital policy

Digital policies hold considerable promise for improving public service delivery, yet their effectiveness varies markedly across jurisdictions. This study argues that performance evaluation systems serve as a critical institutional catalyst conditioning how digital policies translate into service outcomes. Exploiting a natural experiment derived from China’s de-GDP evaluation reforms and the establishment of big data management institutions, our difference-in-differences estimates indicate that performance evaluation reform enhances digital policy effectiveness in improving public service delivery by 2.35%. Mechanism analysis identifies two pathways: reallocation of administrative attention and redirection of fiscal resources. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that evaluation frameworks oriented towards agricultural development and ecological protection outperform poverty-alleviation-focused frameworks in amplifying service gains. These findings suggest that policymakers seeking to maximize returns on digital investment should treat performance evaluation redesign as a co-equal institutional priority – ensuring that incentive structures align explicitly with service quality objectives rather than legacy economic metrics.