Worth the effort? Compliance costs, heuristics, and perceived program accessibility.
Administrative burdens can deter individuals from engaging with government programs before they ever encounter formal application requirements. Drawing on the administrative burden framework and theories of heuristic decision-making, this study examines how prospective applicants form early judgment...
| Published in: | Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory Vol. 36; no. 3; pp. 299 - 316 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Jul2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=194993807&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 194993807 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 10531858 172N jtl: Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory issn: 10531858 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2026 vid: 36 iid: 3 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 194993807 10.1093/jopart/muag007 ppf: 299 ppct: 17 formats: tig: atl: Worth the effort? Compliance costs, heuristics, and perceived program accessibility. aug: au: Allen, Madaline Drolc, Cody A affil: Department of Political Science, University of South Carolina, 349 Gambrell Hall, 817 Henderson Street, Columbia, SC 29208, United States su: Heuristic Government programs Bureaucracy Human behavior Tax compliance costs Cost estimates sug: subj: Heuristic Government programs Bureaucracy Human behavior Tax compliance costs Cost estimates keyword: accessibility administrative burden compliance costs copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association copyrightYear:2026 heuristics inLanguage:en publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muag007 survey experiment accessibility administrative burden compliance costs copyrightHolder:Public Management Research Association copyrightYear:2026 heuristics inLanguage:en publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muag007 survey experiment ab: Administrative burdens can deter individuals from engaging with government programs before they ever encounter formal application requirements. Drawing on the administrative burden framework and theories of heuristic decision-making, this study examines how prospective applicants form early judgments about program accessibility when presented with varying levels of compliance costs. Using three survey experiments centered on a fictional grocery benefit (N = 2,407, N = 965) and a one-time federal tax rebate (N = 1,004), we assess how documentation requirements and effort cues shape perceptions of eligibility, willingness to apply, and perceived accessibility. We find that greater documentation requirements or mismatched time cues lowered perceived eligibility and willingness to apply. Yet asking respondents to pause and estimate the effort reversed those effects, but only for individuals who already possessed the documentation or could form a concrete time estimate about the effort. These findings highlight the role of expected burden and heuristic judgments in shaping pre-application decisions, extending administrative burden research beyond realized experiences to the earliest stages of program engagement. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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