Abstract：Welfare system is considered to play the roles of maintaining social stability， safeguarding social justice and creating legitimacy. In recent years， Chinese government has implemented a large scale welfare reform， which reflects the return to the historical state-society relations in the dimension of distributive politics. Therefore， it is necessary to examine the political effects of welfare reform through institutional design and policy performance. The analysis on the matching point of propensity value finds that welfare reform effectively strengthens political trust， but there exists a hierarchical difference： the strengthening effect of the central government is much stronger than that of the local government. On the one hand， institutional design constrains the effect of political trust generated by redistribution. Inclusive benefits have higher political returns than selective benefits， and exempt benefits are more stable than transfer benefits. Based on the causal mediation analysis， we further examine the institutional effects of institutional performance， welfare preference and justice efficacy in transmitting the political trust generated by welfare， and find that the primary mechanism for redistribution that gives rise to political trust is institutional performance， followed by welfare preference. Therefore， promoting common prosperity through the welfare system depends on the optimal design of the welfare system and the effective governance of the redistribution process.
2022, Vol. 61 
