Outsourcing Property Tax Re-Assessments: Empirical Evaluation

该奖项资助了对一个重要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，实现这种效率的最佳激励合同是什么。将公共服务外包给私营公司是解决人员编制限制的一项战略，但也带来了诸如成本、工作质量和腐败范围等潜在问题。本研究项目利用一个大城市的物业税重估活动来研究外包的影响和最优的合同模式。它将使用实验方法来评估按固定费用合同运营的公司与按绩效合同运营的公司之间的相对业绩，并与政府税务人员的评估相比较，以评估哪种方法以最低成本实现税收目标。这些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，让他们了解外包何时才能有效，以及如何防范潜在的陷阱。这项研究的结果将导致更高的政府人力和财政资源的使用效率和更高的税收收入，这将反过来导致改善公共服务的提供。本项目将使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，以及不同合同的处理效果。最初，公司将对固定合同或基于绩效的合同进行投标。在第一阶段，有资格重新评估的物业的随机子集将由固定合同下的公司、绩效合同下的公司或定期政府纳税评估员进行重新评估。在第二阶段，剩余物业的随机子集将由公司重新评估，所有公司将根据第一阶段确定的表现最好的合同获得补偿，而不考虑公司的初始偏好。利息结果包括税收的变化、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房产，以了解更多关于人口统计特征、完成重新评估的经验、公共服务动机等方面的差异，以及在不同治疗部门工作的评估员。最后，研究人员将使用最近房产税上调的准实验变量来估计税收相对于税率的弹性，并利用这一弹性来评估外包改革对税收收入的影响。一般而言，提高纳税评估和履行政府职能的效率可以带来更好的公共服务和更快的经济增长。这将有助于确立美国在财产税改革方面的全球领先地位。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.