Regulatory Gatekeeping and Nonprofit Sector Development: Evidence From China’s Direct Registration Reform

Regulatory gatekeeping fundamentally shapes the ecology of the nonprofit sector, yet the causal mechanisms linking entry-barrier reforms to organizational proliferation remain underexamined. Integrating institutional, resource dependence, and signaling theories, this study develops a conditional framework specifying both the direct effect of reducing regulatory constraints on nonprofit development and the boundary conditions that amplify this effect. We test this framework by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment—the staggered implementation of direct registration reform across Chinese provinces—using difference-in-differences and spatial econometric models. Results demonstrate that lowering entry barriers significantly accelerates organizational growth across all nonprofit categories. Crucially, this institutional effect is not uniform; it is substantially amplified by governmental resource capacity and societal legitimacy signals. Spatial analysis further reveals positive cross-jurisdictional spillovers, although the amplifying effects of resources and legitimacy remain geographically bounded. These findings advance scholarship on government–nonprofit relations by establishing that regulatory reform expands the possibility space for civil society, but its magnitude depends critically on complementary administrative support and societal endorsement. The conditional framework offers generalizable insights for understanding how regulatory governance restructures nonprofit organizational fields across diverse institutional contexts.