Driving factors of social policy diffusion in China: an event history analysis of public rental housing policy adoption

Many studies have investigated the forces driving policy adoption. However, the process by which China's social policies diffuse remains unclear. This study addressed this research gap by developing hypotheses that incorporated insights from competitive theories about policy diffusion. Applying the event history analysis method to data from 2008 to 2021, we found that factors such as administrative pressure, economic development, and housing investment impacted China's Public Rental Housing Policy (PRHP) adoption more significantly than other factors like neighbour effect and leadership mobility. This study contributes to the theoretical literature on policy adoption by examining multiple competing research hypotheses.