The effect of inter-municipal cooperation on social assistance programs: Evidence from housing allowances in England

IF 2.3 3区 管理学 Q2 ECONOMICS
Thomas Elston, Germà Bel, Han Wang
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Decentralized implementation of means-tested social assistance programs requires significant organizational capacity among local governments. For other types of local public service, like refuse collection and utilities provision, inter-municipal cooperation has proven capable of reducing the cost of subnational policy implementation, especially for smaller municipalities. But few impact evaluations test whether the same benefits can be achieved for less capital-intensive and more co-produced services, like social assistance. Moreover, most evaluations focus on production costs alone, despite the potential trade-off with service quality. We analyze panel data describing both the cost and quality of housing allowance administration for 314 local authorities in England between 2009 and 2019, during which time 80 switched from autonomous services to inter-municipal cooperation. Using coarsened exact matching and stacked difference-in-differences, we find no evidence of short-term savings after cooperation, and only weak indications thereafter. We also observe declining processing speeds, increased maladministration, and signs of reduced payment accuracy, though mostly these are temporary effects. Altogether, these results suggest that, in this setting, inter-municipal cooperation may be unsuited to labor-intensive public services; that short- and long-term effects can differ; and that, even in the absence of a profit motive, quality shading remains a risk in cooperation reforms.
城市间合作对社会救助计划的影响:来自英国住房补贴的证据
分散实施经经济情况调查的社会援助项目需要地方政府具备强大的组织能力。对于其他类型的地方公共服务,如垃圾收集和公用事业提供,城市间的合作已证明能够降低地方政策执行的成本,特别是对较小的城市而言。但很少有影响评估能检验资本密集度较低、合作生产较多的服务(如社会救助)是否也能获得同样的效益。此外,大多数评价只关注生产成本,而不顾与服务质量的潜在权衡。我们分析了2009年至2019年期间英格兰314个地方政府住房补贴管理成本和质量的面板数据,在此期间,80个地方政府从自治服务转向城市间合作。采用粗化精确匹配和差中差叠加的方法,我们没有发现合作后短期储蓄的证据,合作后只有微弱的迹象。我们还观察到处理速度下降、管理不善增加以及支付准确性降低的迹象,尽管这些大多是暂时的影响。总之,这些结果表明,在这种情况下,城市间的合作可能不适合劳动密集型的公共服务;短期和长期的影响是不同的;而且,即使在没有利润动机的情况下,质量阴影仍然是合作改革的风险。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
5.80
自引率
2.60%
发文量
82
期刊介绍: This journal encompasses issues and practices in policy analysis and public management. Listed among the contributors are economists, public managers, and operations researchers. Featured regularly are book reviews and a department devoted to discussing ideas and issues of importance to practitioners, researchers, and academics.
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