Tax farming redux: Experimental evidence on performance pay for tax collectors
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National Bureau of Economic Research
Abstract: "Many low-income households in the United States miss out on social safety net benefits because of the information, compliance, and psychological costs associated with take-up of government assistance. Yet, the empirical evidence on the impact of learning and psychological costs on take-up, and how to reduce them, is mixed. Leaning on an administrative burden framework, this paper measures the role of reducing learning costs and stigma on demand for rental assistance in two field experiments (N = 117,073) conducted in two US cities. We find that providing information about emergency rental assistance increased program application requests by 52% compared to a no-communication control group. Moreover, subtle framing changes aimed at destigmatizing rental assistance increased engagement with the communication by 36% and increased application requests by about 18% relative to an information-only group, with potentially larger effects for renters of color. In two subsequent online experiments (N = 1,258), we document that the destigmatizing framing reduces internalized stigma, without affecting perceptions of the program itself."
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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Science
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American Economic Association
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Health Affairs
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Ideas for India
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IZA Institute of Labor Economics
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Harvard Kennedy School of Government
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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Nature
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Penguin Random House
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PNAS
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Ideas for India
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IZA Institute of Labor Economics
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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IZA Institute of Labor Economics
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EconPapers
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J-PAL
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American Economic Journal
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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Nature
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Seuil Jeunesse
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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EconPapers
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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Juggernaut Books
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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J-PAL
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New England Journal of Medicine AI
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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Journal of Development Economics
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Hachette
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American Economic Association
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De Gruyter
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Oxford University Press
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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EconPapers
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Public Affair Books
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Seuil
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Seuil
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J-PAL
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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The MIT Press
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National Bureau of Economic Research
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VoxDev
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MIT Climate Grand Challenges