scholarly journals Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Postings

2019 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adnan Q. Khan ◽  
Asim Ijaz Khwaja ◽  
Benjamin A. Olken
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Tax Revenue ◽  
Revenue Growth ◽  
Bureaucratic Performance ◽  
Serial Dictatorship ◽  
High Equilibrium ◽  
A Performance

Bureaucracies often post staff to better or worse locations, ostensibly to provide incentives. Yet we know little about whether this works, with heterogeneity in preferences over postings impacting effectiveness. We propose a performance-ranked serial dictatorship mechanism, whereby bureaucrats sequentially choose desired locations in order of performance. We evaluate this using a two-year field experiment with 525 property tax inspectors in Pakistan. The mechanism increases annual tax revenue growth by 30–41 percent. Inspectors whom our model predicts face high equilibrium incentives under the scheme indeed increase performance more. Our results highlight the potential of periodic merit-based postings in enhancing bureaucratic performance. (JEL C93, D73, H71, H83, J45, M54, O17)

Determinants of Property Tax Revenue : Lessons from Empirical Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajul Awasthi ◽  
Tuan Minh Le ◽  
Chenli You
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Tax Revenue

Experimental evidence about property tax word aversion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric J. Brunner ◽  
Mark D. Robbins ◽  
Bill Simonsen
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Property Tax

scholarly journals Three doors anomaly, “should I stay, or should I go”: an artefactual field experiment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Morone ◽  
Rocco Caferra ◽  
Alessia Casamassima ◽  
Alessandro Cascavilla ◽  
Paola Tiranzoni
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Bayesian Updating ◽  
Anomalous Behavior ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Illusion Of Control ◽  
Optimal Decision ◽  
Status Quo Bias ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis work aims to identify and quantify the biases behind the anomalous behavior of people when they deal with the Three Doors dilemma, which is a really simple but counterintuitive game. Carrying out an artefactual field experiment and proposing eight different treatments to isolate the anomalies, we provide new interesting experimental evidence on the reasons why subjects fail to take the optimal decision. According to the experimental results, we are able to quantify the size and the impact of three main biases that explain the anomalous behavior of participants: Bayesian updating, illusion of control and status quo bias.

scholarly journals Kwacha Gonna Do? Experimental Evidence about Labor Supply in Rural Malawi

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Labor Supply ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Wage Elasticity ◽  
Supply Elasticity ◽  
Labor Supply Elasticity ◽  
Job Offers ◽  
Daily Wage

I use a field experiment to estimate the wage elasticity of employment in the day labor market in rural Malawi. Once a week for 12 consecutive weeks, I make job offers for a workfare-type program to 529 adults. The daily wage varies from the tenth to the ninetieth percentile of the wage distribution, and individuals are entitled to work a maximum of one day per week. In this context (the low agricultural season), 74 percent of individuals worked at the lowest wage, and consequently the estimated labor supply elasticity is low (0.15), regardless of observable characteristics. (JEL C93, J22, J31, O15, O18, R23)

scholarly journals Endogenous Taxation in Ongoing Internal Conflict: The Case of Colombia

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 996-1015 ◽  
Author(s):  
RAFAEL CH ◽  
JACOB SHAPIRO ◽  
ABBEY STEELE ◽  
JUAN F. VARGAS
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Property Tax ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Tax Revenue ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Municipal Level

Recent empirical evidence suggests an ambiguous relationship between internal conflicts, state capacity, and tax performance. In theory, internal conflict should create strong incentives for governments to develop the fiscal capacity necessary to defeat rivals. We argue that one reason that this does not occur is because internal conflict enables groups with de facto power to capture local fiscal and property rights institutions. We test this mechanism in Colombia using data on tax performance and property rights institutions at the municipal level. Municipalities affected by internal conflict have tax institutions consistent with the preferences of the parties dominating local violence. Those suffering more right-wing violence feature more land formalization and higher property tax revenues. Municipalities with substantial left-wing guerrilla violence collect less tax revenue and witness less land formalization. Our findings provide systematic evidence that internal armed conflict helps interest groups capture municipal institutions for their own private benefit, impeding state-building.

The Consumer Citizen, Politicians, and Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-74
Author(s):  
Ethan Porter
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Political Candidate ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter studies the relationship between consumer fairness, political preferences, and policy uptake. Americans who support Donald Trump are especially likely to believe the government should be judged by the standards of private companies. New experimental evidence documents that, when politicians of both parties use consumer rhetoric, co-partisans of those leaders subsequently come to view politics in strikingly consumerist terms. In another experiment, results show that voters with low levels of political knowledge look most positively upon a hypothetical political candidate who promises cost-benefit alignability, compared to a candidate who promises more benefits than costs. The chapter then describes a field experiment administered in cooperation with a health insurance cooperative funded under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A message that framed the cooperative as meeting the standards of cost-benefit alignability caused people to enroll in the cooperative.

scholarly journals Labor Drops: Experimental Evidence on the Return to Additional Labor in Microenterprises

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suresh de Mel ◽  
David McKenzie ◽  
Christopher Woodruff
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Wage Subsidies ◽  
Track Dynamics ◽  
Additional Labor

A field experiment in Sri Lanka provided wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises to test whether hiring additional labor benefits such firms and whether a short-term subsidy can have a lasting impact on firm employment. Using 12 rounds of surveys to track dynamics 4 years after treatment, we find that firms increased employment during the subsidy period. Treated firms were more likely to survive, but there was no lasting impact on employment and no effect on profitability or sales either during or after the subsidy period. There is some heterogeneity in effects; the subsidies have a more durable effect on manufacturers. (JEL C93, J22, J24, J31, J38, O14, O15)

Decomposition of Tax Revenue Growth in Russian Regions

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-126
Author(s):  
M. Yu. Malkina ◽  
R. V. Balakin
Keyword(s):  
Tax Revenue ◽  
Russian Regions ◽  
Revenue Growth

Coethnicity and Corruption: Field Experimental Evidence from Public Officials in Malawi

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-66
Author(s):  
Brigitte Seim ◽  
Amanda Lea Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials

AbstractCorruption is widespread in many developing countries, though public officials’ discretion in the solicitation of bribes may expose some citizens to more corruption than others. We derive expectations about how shared ethnicity between government officials and citizens should influence the likelihood of bribe solicitation. We evaluate these expectations through a field experiment in which Malawian confederates seek electricity connections from real government offices – an interaction that is often accompanied by bribe solicitation. Our field experiment exogenously varied coethnicity between the official and the confederate. We find that coethnicity increases the likelihood of expediting an electricity connection, both with and without a bribe, which we interpret as evidence of parochial corruption.

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