Evaluation of Consumers on Government Responsibility for Quality and Safety and Its Influencing Factors - Based on the Cross-Sectional Empirical Study of China in 2012

Government regulation plays an important role in the quality and safety responsibility system and also attracts the attention of media and the public under the condition of frequent quality and safety incidents at present. The survey data of the “2012 China Quality Development Observation Report” from Wuhan University Institute of Quality Development Strategy show that, from the perspective of Chinese consumers, they do not have high opinions on the effectiveness of responsibility assumption of government regulation agencies in the quality and safety system, which even deviates from the scientific orientation of the quality and safety responsibility of the government. Meanwhile, the results of Probit model regression show that, in the whole sample, the gender of consumers, their education level and spending level will significantly increase the probability for consumers to make this judgment, thus deteriorate the negative evaluation on the quality and safety responsibility of the government. If the consumers were grouped in accordance with their intrinsic properties characteristics, the differences within the groups will have different effects on the judgment of consumers about the quality and safety responsibility of the government. According to the results of empirical analysis, corresponding policies and tools shall be adopted to help consumers establish scientific and rational judgment on the quality and safety responsibility according to the different characteristics of consumers, especially carrying out publicity and education of quality and safety responsibility to the consumers working in the undergraduate phase of the higher education, in female consumer groups, government and public institutions, which is more helpful to reverse the wrong awareness of consumers on the quality and safety responsibility of the government, so as to build a good social environment for the quality and safety management