Outsourcing Property Tax Re-Assessments: Empirical Evaluation

该奖项资助对一个重要经济政策问题的研究：当政府缺乏有效提供某些公共服务的能力时，将这些服务外包给私营部门是否有效；如果是这样，什么是实现这种效率的最佳激励契约？将公共服务外包给私营公司是解决人员短缺问题的一种策略，但也会带来成本、工作质量和腐败可能性等潜在问题。本研究项目利用一个大城市的房产税重估活动来研究外包的影响以及这样做的最佳合同模型。它将使用实验方法来评价按固定费用经营的公司与按绩效合同经营的公司的业绩，相互比较，并与政府税务工作人员的评估相比较，以评估哪种方法以最低成本实现税收目标。研究结果将为美国和世界各地的大量政策制定者提供与政策相关的证据，说明外包何时有效，以及如何防范潜在的陷阱。这项研究的结果将提高政府人力和财政资源的使用效率，增加税收，从而改善公共服务的提供。该项目将采用大规模的两阶段随机对照试验，研究企业选择固定合同和基于绩效的合同，以及不同合同的治疗效果。最初，公司将竞标固定合同或基于绩效的合同。在第一阶段，有资格重新评估的财产的随机子集将由固定合同下的公司、绩效合同下的公司或政府定期税务评估人员重新评估。在第二阶段，公司将重新评估剩余房产的随机子集，所有公司将根据第一阶段确定的最佳合同获得补偿，而不管公司最初的偏好如何。关注的结果包括税收收入的变化、重新评估的准确性和纳税人满意度。研究人员还将调查公司和政府雇用的评估人员，以了解在不同待遇下工作的评估人员在人口特征、完成重新评估的经验、公共服务动机等方面的差异。最后，研究人员将使用最近财产税增加的准实验变量来估计税收相对于税率的弹性，并以此作为外包改革对税收影响的基准。提高评税和执行政府职能的效率一般可导致更好地提供公共服务和更快地实现经济增长。这将有助于使美国成为房产税改革的全球领导者。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award funds research on an important economic policy question: is it efficient for some public services to be outsourced to the private sector when governments lack the capacity to provide them efficiently; if so, what is the best incentive contract to achieve this efficiency. Outsourcing the provision of public services to private firms is one strategy to address staffing constraints but carries potential concerns such as cost, quality of work, and scope for corruption. This research project takes advantage of a property tax re-valuation exercise in a large city to study the effects of outsourcing and the optimal contract models for doing so. It will use experimental methods to evaluate the performance of firms operating under fixed fee versus performance-based contracts, relative to each other, and as compared to assessments by government tax staff to assess which approach achieves the tax objectives at the lowest cost. The results will provide policy relevant evidence to a large audience of policymakers in the US and worldwide on when outsourcing can be effective and how to guard against potential pitfalls. The results of this research will lead to higher efficiency in the use of government human and financial resources and higher tax revenues, which will in turn result in the improved provision of public services.Using a large-scale, two-phase randomized control trial, this project will study the selection of firms into fixed and performance-based contracts, as well as the treatment effects of the varying contracts. Initially, firms will bid on either fixed or performance-based contracts. In the first phase, a random subset of properties eligible for reassessment will be reassessed by either a firm under a fixed contract, a firm under a performance-based contract, or by regular government tax assessors. In the second phase, a random subset of the remaining properties will be reassessed by firms with all firms being compensated according to the best-performing contract identified in the first phase, regardless of the firm’s initial preference. Outcomes of interest include changes in tax revenue, accuracy of re-assessments, and taxpayer satisfaction. The researchers will also survey the employees hired by the firms and by the government to assess the properties, to learn more about differences in demographic characteristics, experience with completing re-assessments, public service motivation, among others, across assessors working under the different treatment arms. Finally, the researchers will use quasi-experimental variation from recent property tax increases to estimate the elasticity of tax revenue with respect to the tax rate and use this to benchmark the impact of outsourcing reforms on tax revenues. Increasing the efficiency of tax assessment and the execution of government functions generally could lead to better provision of public services and faster economic growth. This will help to establish the US a global leader in property tax reforms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.