Yue Guo, Hao Huang, Xu Z
Co-production, defined as collaboration between citizens and government in delivering public services, can be enhanced through well-designed incentives. Although material (e.g., financial rewards) and non-material (e.g., social recognition) incentives have been widely studied, less attention has been given to how administrative burdens embedded in co-production—manifested as internal experiential costs and external procedural barriers—influence their effectiveness. This study draws on a survey experiment conducted in the context of mutual-aid older adult care in China to examine how perceptions of different levels and types of administrative burden shape the impact of various incentives on participation. The findings indicate that both material and non-material incentives increase willingness to co-produce, but their effectiveness varies with the type and severity of burdens. Internal experiential costs, such as learning and psychological burdens, are associated with lower participation and a conditional weakening of material incentive effects, whereas external procedural barriers, such as compliance burdens, show little association with incentive effectiveness. This study advances administrative burden theory by highlighting that incentives do not operate in a vacuum; they operate within specific burden contexts. Variation in incentive effectiveness is systematically linked to differences in perceived burdens, offering a potential explanation for mixed findings in prior studies.