While contracting out is often viewed as having negative consequences for public employees, less focus has been placed on understanding how it can also have positive outcomes for them. Recent scholarship proposes that contracting out may improve employees’ work attitudes when it emphasizes pro-social factors. Using the U.S. federal small, disadvantaged business (SDB) contracting program—which emphasizes diversity and equity in procurement—as an example, this study examines the relationship between contracting programs aimed at promoting social outcomes and public employees’ job satisfaction. Drawing insights from public administration research, we expect a positive relationship between the SDB contracting efforts and public employees’ satisfaction. The U.S. federal government procurement data and the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) were used for analysis. The results show that increased SDB contracting is associated with enhanced job satisfaction. In addition, employees of underrepresented backgrounds experience a more pronounced increase in satisfaction linked to SDB contracting initiatives. The implications of the findings for government contracting and public human resource management are discussed.
This paper examines the trade-off between educational equity and student achievement by analyzing Taiwan’s 2014 exam-free high school admission reform, which substantially reduced ability-based tracking. Using a difference-in-differences design comparing high school students exposed to the reform with unaffected middle school students, this paper finds that the reform increased within-school heterogeneity by 30 points (effect size = 0.86), evidence of a major weakening of ability-based sorting across schools. Consistent with the policy’s equity objectives, low-performing students gained access to better schools, more qualified teachers, and higher-achieving peers. These equity gains, however, came at a clear cost: average performance declined by 50 points (0.18 standard deviations), with negative effects spread uniformly across the achievement distribution. A triple-difference design analysis yields consistent results. Overall, this study’s findings reveal a pronounced equity-achievement trade-off, showing that detracking can expand educational opportunity while reducing overall academic performance.
Despite substantial evidence on how supervisors’ racial composition influences employees’ work-related attitudes, little attention has been given to the reciprocal effects on supervisors themselves. This study examines how same-race subordinates affect supervisors’ job satisfaction, revealing a racially divergent pattern. Using federal employee data from 2020–2023, this paper finds that White supervisors experience increased job satisfaction when working in agencies with higher proportions of same-race subordinates, consistent with relational demography theory. In contrast, supervisors of color experience decreased job satisfaction under similar conditions, aligning with theoretical expectations regarding the burden of representation and tokenism theory. Mediation analysis demonstrates this negative effect operates through reduced role clarity and deteriorated supervisor relationships, implying that supervisors of color may face role conflicts between organizational norms and community expectations. However, this burden diminishes as minority representation in leadership increases, becoming positive when exceeding 44% of supervisors. These findings reveal hidden costs borne by minority supervisors and identify when these costs transform into benefits.
This paper utilizes wealth shocks from winning lottery prizes to examine the causal effect of financial resources on fertility. We employ extensive panels of administrative data encompassing over 0.4 million lottery winners in Taiwan and implement a triple-differences design. Our analyses reveal that a substantial lottery win can significantly increase fertility, the implied wealth elasticity of which is around 0.06. Moreover, the primary channel through which fertility increases is by prompting first births among previously childless individuals. Finally, our analysis reveals that approximately 25% of the total fertility effect stems from increased marriage rates following a lottery win.
U.S. higher education institutions are hiring more minoritized faculty into their teaching workforce to satisfy the demand of an increasingly diverse racial and ethnic student population. However, it is not always clear whether specific hiring policies and plans are intended to address the matter of diversity or representation—two similar but qualitatively different concepts. The policy choices that institutions make result in different implementation approaches and long-term outcomes. Using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from 2001 to 2021, this study measures and compares the changes in faculty diversity and student–faculty representation in U.S. higher education institutions over the past two decades. It then develops several simulated scenarios to project the future racial and ethnic landscape of American campuses, depending on the different policy choices that institutions make through their hiring and retention policies. Our recommendation calls for balanced efforts in the retention and hiring of minoritized and underrepresented faculty that are adapted to the individual circumstances of institutions.
Utilizing administrative data encompassing the entire population of Taiwan, this paper investigates the long-term effects of job displacement on earnings and mental health. Focusing on job loss resulting from mass layoffs and plant closures, our estimates suggest displaced workers experienced a 67–68% earning loss in the year following a layoff. Even after ten years, earnings do not fully recover. Displaced workers also experience long-term deterioration in mental health, particularly related to stress, with a 15–16% increase in cumulative outpatient visits for mental health issues and a 57–62% increase in cumulative medical costs for mental illness in the decade post-displacement. The negative impact on mental health is more pronounced among workers with lower earnings, men, and older individuals.
Government programs impose eligibility requirements to balance the goals of improving welfare while minimizing waste. We study the impact of eligibility monitoring in the context of Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) submissions, where students may be subject to “verification” requirements that require them to confirm the accuracy of the data. Using a matching on observables design we do not find that students flagged for verification are less likely to enroll in college, which contrasts prior research. Verification reduces grant aid received but average changes are small, raising questions about the benefits of this administrative process.
This study investigates the impact of teacher favoritism (i.e., systematically favoring students of a specific gender, ethnicity, or high previous class ranking) on teacher treatment and student achievement. Based on the practice of random class grouping within schools, a school fixed effect model is used to estimate the causal effect of teacher favoritism. The results suggest that teacher favoritism toward students with a higher previous class rank increases the likelihood of these students consulting with their teacher on academic, emotional, and friendship issues. Also, female students are more likely to discuss friendships and emotional matters with pro-female teachers. However, the evidence of teacher favoritism’s impact on student achievement is relatively weak.
Healthcare has been one of the most affected sectors during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The utilization of related services for non-COVID-19 diseases fell dramatically following the point at which the virus broke out; however, little is known about whether this observed decline in healthcare use was due to voluntary behaviors or enforced measures. This paper quantifies the spontaneous change in healthcare utilization during the pandemic. We utilize a county-by-week-level dataset from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) record, covering the entire Taiwanese population, and a difference-in-differences design. Our results indicate that even if there were no human mobility restrictions or supply-side constraints, people voluntarily reduced their demand for healthcare, due to fears of contagion, or COVID-related precautionary behaviors. We find that the number of outpatient visits (inpatient admissions) decreased by 19% (10%) during the pandemic period (February to May 2020). Furthermore, the demand response of healthcare for Influenza-like illness (ILI) was much greater and more persistent than for non-ILI, thereby suggesting that the substantial decline in accessing healthcare was induced by positive public health externality of prevention measures for COVID-19. Finally, we find that the demand for healthcare services did not get back to the pre-pandemic baseline, even when there were no local coronavirus cases for 253 consecutive days (mid-April to December 2020) in Taiwan.
The arm’s length principle implies that intermediary cultural organization performs better on art funding allocation than the government or politicians. This paper uses data from the art funding list from 2015 to 2017 in Taiwan to examine whether The National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF, an intermediary cultural organization) distributes funding fairer than The Ministry of Culture (MOC). There are three different concepts of fairness: equity, equality, and need (distributing funding to those who need it). The result of this paper shows MOC and NCAF have no significant difference in equity, but NCAF indeed performs better on equality and need than MOC, although the effect isn’t as strong as we thought. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that the arm’s length principle really works, and it’s necessary for MOC to collaborate with NCAF. However, it’s also important to improve the fairness of art funding allocation in the future.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act introduced a 1.4% excise tax on the net investment income of select nonprofit colleges. Affected colleges warned that the tax would force them to cut educational spending and reduce financial aid to students. Using a triple‐difference design that exploits the policy’s dual eligibility thresholds and drawing on IPEDS and IRS Form 990 data from 2010 to 2022, this paper finds that taxed colleges did not cut spending or financial aid. Instead, they raised tuition to pass the tax burden onto students and their families. Institutional financial aid did not keep pace with tuition increases, resulting in higher net attendance costs. The policy is also associated with an increase in enrollment among Pell Grant recipients and a decline among students who rely on Federal Student Loans, suggesting that the tuition increase is partially subsidized by the federal government through grants, while middle‐income students who neither qualify for grants nor can self‐finance their education may face reduced access to these selective institutions. These findings highlight how institutional responses to government taxation can redistribute costs in ways that raise concerns about educational equity.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been widely adopted in government and public service but whether and to what extent governments adopt AI varies. A key question is whether variation in AI adoption across local governments stems from capacity constraints or political preferences. This matters for knowing which kinds of policies would be most successful in making sure that local governments have access to the technologies that they want and need. This paper combines data from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Survey, American Trends Panel (ATP), the Current Population Survey (CPS), and other public data sources to examine how capacity and political factors influence local government AI adoption in the United States. Using logistic and Poisson regression models, we find that citizens’ attitudes toward AI, public employee unionization, local governments’ financial capacity, and infrastructure support are all key determinants of AI adoption. Notably, political factors (citizens’ attitudes and employees’ resistance) are equally influential as capacity factors in explaining government AI adoption, and in some cases, more powerful. These findings suggest that variation in AI adoption across local governments results not only from capacity barriers but also from political preferences, highlighting the role of democratic processes in technology adoption decisions.
Competition is central to government contracting. While public administration studies have examined how competition affects contracting outcomes, less attention has been paid to what explains competition in government markets. Transaction cost theory suggests that the characteristics of contracted work shape the level of competition and highlights managers’ efforts to address noncompetitive markets. However, this perspective often treats competition as a market condition to be managed, rather than as an outcome that may be shaped by governments’ own design choices. This study contributes to research on what shapes competition in contracting by focusing on the role of administrative requirements for bidding. Drawing on administrative burden research, which highlights that requirements can discourage initial participation and lead to applicant drop-off during the process, we expect bidding requirements to be associated with fewer bid submissions and fewer submissions that remain eligible for consideration. Using Poisson regressions to analyze 79,968 contracts and 184,550 bids from Taiwan’s e-procurement system, we find evidence that stricter administrative requirements reduce competition, both in terms of participation and bid attrition. The findings contribute to contracting research by demonstrating that state actions are important for market governance and provide insights for enhancing market competition.
Property reassessments aim to align property’s assessed values with market prices, serving as an essential tool to ensure tax fairness. However, reassessments can unintentionally impact housing values and, therefore, affect wealth distribution. Based on data from 19 Pennsylvania counties, this study examines property reassessment’s impact on housing values. The paper explores two contrasting theories: the capitalization effect, which predicts reduced housing values in wealthy regions and increased prices in less developed areas, and the anchoring effect, anticipating more pronounced price increases in affluent regions and wider disparities in housing prices. Using a difference-in-differences approach and instrumental variable analysis, the study finds the anchoring effect dominates. On average, property reassessment raises housing values by 9% in counties, with a pronounced positive effect in high-priced regions and a negative impact in non-affluent regions. This highlights that while reassessment enhances tax fairness, it also disproportionately benefits wealthier individuals and widens geographical disparity in housing prices, contradicting wealth equality goals.
This study investigates the influence of residing in student dormitories on short and long-term student outcomes within the context of Taiwan. This research examines the causal effects of on-campus residency by utilizing colleges’ dormitory assignment policy based on students’ residential locations and employing a boundary-based regression discontinuity design. The study incorporates a two-way fixed effect model, including both college and village fixed effects, to account for potential geographical self-selection biases. The findings reveal that on-campus living doesn’t significantly impact persistence, but it does enhance the likelihood of pursuing graduate education, primarily influenced by enrolling in the same college for undergraduate studies. This positive effect can be attributed to two intermediate outcomes: an increase in on-campus employment, indicative of greater on-campus engagement, and a higher likelihood of receiving awards from contests or competitions, suggesting increased participation in extracurricular activities. The impact is more pronounced among students from low-income families, those without siblings, and those attending more prestigious colleges.
Government contracting is often used not only to promote market efficiency but also to advance equity goals, such as expanding opportunities for disadvantaged firms. This paper examines whether equity-oriented set-aside policies undermine efficiency or contracting performance. We study a policy in Taiwan requiring government contracts below NT$1.5 million in certain categories to prioritize sheltered workshops and organizations serving people with disabilities, while contracts above the threshold are not subject to this requirement. Using a difference-in-discontinuity design that compares contracts just below and above the threshold within and outside the regulated categories, we estimate the causal effects of the set-aside policy. The results show that the policy increases the number of disabled bidders by about 20% and raises their probability of winning contracts by roughly 60%, without reducing participation from non-disabled firms. In addition, contracts subject to the policy do not exhibit higher final prices, suggesting that expanding access for disadvantaged firms does not come at the expense of efficiency.
Property tax systems often rely on government-assessed values rather than market prices, creating systematic distortions. High-value properties are frequently undervalued, resulting in lower effective tax rates for wealthy homeowners and producing a regressive tax structure. To address this problem, many jurisdictions have adopted market-value-based taxation, or “actual value” assessment, which aims to align tax liabilities with real property values and improve tax equity. However, a key concern is that higher property taxes may be passed on to tenants through increased rents, potentially undermining housing affordability. This study examines this trade-off by evaluating Philadelphia’s 2014 property tax reform, the Actual Value Initiative (AVI), which reassessed all properties based on market values. Using the Synthetic Control Method, this paper constructs a comparable counterfactual city to estimate the reform’s impact. The findings show that the reform shifted tax burdens from low-value to high-value properties, improving tax equity. However, rents increased after the reform, particularly for higher-value units, and rent burdens rose disproportionately for low-income households.
Transparency scholarship has developed a relatively solid understanding of how external, request-side factors shape reactive transparency outcomes, including whether, how quickly, and to what extent government grants an information request, yet internal, government-side factors remain largely unexplored. This study examines whether internal transparency, defined as the availability of information to internal actors within government, serves as an important internal attribute of government that conditions reactive transparency outcomes. Drawing on a unique panel dataset combining multiple U.S. federal agency data sources, consisting of 47 federal agencies over 13 years (2012–2024), we find consistent and robust evidence that higher internal transparency is associated with a higher FOIA case processing rate and shorter processing time. In addition, higher internal transparency is associated with a larger share of full-grant decisions and a smaller share of partial-grant/partial-denial decisions. These results suggest that making information accessible internally may be a promising new factor that further facilitates outward information disclosure, opening new avenues for transparency research.
Studies demonstrated that employee voice improves organizational performance, yet employees are often reluctant to speak up. Prior work attributes this reluctance to workplace power structures and to leadership style, but rarely examines how the two operate together. Using an original survey of 811 street-level bureaucrats across 43 agencies in Taiwan, this paper finds that employees whose gender matches their supervisor’s are more willing to speak up, and that female employees under male supervisors exhibit the lowest levels of voice behavior, consistent with a power-structure account. We further find that authoritarian leadership is negatively associated with promotive voice but yields no significant relationship with prohibitive voice, while servant leadership is positively associated with both voice behaviors. Most importantly, the two leadership styles moderate the gender gap asymmetrically. Authoritarian leadership widens the existing unequal voice power among gender dynamics, while servant leadership raises voice across all four dyads at approximately equal magnitude without closing the gender inequality gap.
Under the rise of New Public Management, government outsourcing has expanded worldwide to improve efficiency, yet concerns persist that it may undermine other public values. Responding to the New Public Administration’s emphasis on social equity, many governments now pursue equity through procurement policies such as support programs, preferential treatment, and affirmative measures for disadvantaged and underrepresented firms. This study examines whether such efforts create an equity–efficiency trade-off. Using Taiwan’s Government e-Procurement data, the research analyzes three approaches: reducing administrative burdens, implementing affirmative action, and increasing representativeness in evaluation committees. Employing fixed effects, regression discontinuity, difference-in-differences, and instrumental variables, the study assesses how each approach affects equitable competition and procurement efficiency. The findings advance public administration theory on value trade-offs and offer practical guidance for designing procurement systems that better balance equity and efficiency.