Optimal Assignment of Bureaucrats: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Tax Collectors in the DRC

Augustin Bergeron, Pedro Bessone, John Kabeya Kabeya, Gabriel Tourek and Jonathan L. Weigel

No 30413, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The assignment of workers to tasks and teams is a key margin of firm productivity and a potential source of state effectiveness. This paper investigates whether a low-capacity state can increase its tax revenue by optimally assigning its tax collectors. We study the two-stage random assignment of property tax collectors into teams and to neighborhoods in a large Congolese city. The optimal assignment involves positive assortative matching on both dimensions: high (low) ability collectors should be paired together, and high (low) ability teams should be paired with high (low) payment propensity households. Positive assortative matching stems from complementarities in collector-to-collector and collector-to-household match types. We provide evidence that these complementarities reflect in part high-ability collectors exerting greater effort when matched with other high-ability collectors. According to our estimates, implementing the optimal assignment would increase tax compliance by 2.94 percentage points and revenue by 26% relative to the status quo (random) assignment. Alternative policies, such as replacing low-ability collectors with new ones of average ability or increasing collectors’ performance wages, are likely incapable of achieving a similar revenue increase.

JEL-codes: D73 H11 H20 M50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-hrm, nep-pbe and nep-pub
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: OPTIMAL ASSIGNMENT OF BUREAUCRATS: EVIDENCE FROM RANDOMLY ASSIGNED TAX COLLECTORS IN THE DRC (2021)
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