Outsourcing Property Tax Re-Assessments: Empirical Evaluation

该奖项资助一个重要的经济政策问题的研究：当政府缺乏有效提供公共服务的能力时，将一些公共服务外包给私营部门是否有效;如果是这样，实现这种效率的最佳激励合同是什么。 将公共服务的提供外包给私营公司是解决人手不足问题的一项战略，但也带来了成本、工作质量和腐败范围等潜在问题。本研究以一个大城市的物业税重估为例，研究外包的效果和最佳合同模式。它将使用实验方法来评估在固定费用与基于绩效的合同下运营的公司的绩效，并与政府税务人员的评估进行比较，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政策制定者提供政策相关证据，说明外包何时有效以及如何防范潜在的陷阱。本研究的结果将有助于提高政府人力和财力的使用效率，增加税收，进而改善公共服务的提供。本研究将采用大规模的两阶段随机对照试验，研究固定合同和绩效合同的企业选择，以及不同合同的处理效果。最初，公司将投标固定或基于绩效的合同。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、基于绩效的合同下的公司或定期政府税务评估员重新评估。在第二阶段，剩余财产的随机子集将由公司重新评估，所有公司都将根据第一阶段确定的最佳表现合同获得补偿，而不管公司最初的偏好如何。感兴趣的结果包括税收收入的变化，重新评估的准确性和纳税人的满意度。研究人员还将调查公司和政府雇用的员工来评估这些财产，以了解更多关于人口统计特征的差异，完成重新评估的经验，公共服务动机等，在不同的治疗臂下工作的评估员。最后，研究人员将使用最近财产税增加的准实验变化来估计税收收入相对于税率的弹性，并以此来衡量外包改革对税收收入的影响。提高税收评估的效率和政府职能的执行一般可以导致更好地提供公共服务和更快的经济增长。 该奖项反映了NSF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.