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We examine whether performance budgeting systems such as the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) induce public employees to engage in "gaming" behavior. We propose an algorithm for detecting gaming behavior that makes use of the discrete nature of the PART system in Korea (KPART) and the revealed patterns of the distribution of the KPART scores. By employing the test developed by McCrary, we find suspicious patterns in the density of the KPART scores and evidence points to the fact that manipulation is prevalent in the KPART system. Our analysis suggests that public employees are sensitive to negative incentives and that great care must be taken when designing performance budgeting systems.

AbstractA growing number of cities and states have been providing large tuition subsidies for residents through initiatives often called "place‐based" or "Promise" scholarship programs. We examine the effects of a prominent last‐dollar, place‐based scholarship program, Say Yes to Education in Buffalo, NY, on college matriculation and persistence. Employing a difference‐in‐differences strategy comparing changes across cohorts of students eligible and ineligible for large college scholarships, we find that scholarship eligibility is associated with an increase of 20 percent in the likelihood of matriculating into college within one year of graduation, and an increase in the likelihood of persistence into a second year of college of nearly 16 percent. Increases in matriculation are largely at four‐year institutions, where most of the additional funding from Say Yes is concentrated, exclusively at in‐state institutions, both public and private, and are largest at colleges with more selective admission rates. Finally, we see the largest increases in matriculation and persistence among students who attend high schools in the middle third of the poverty distribution. These results suggest that the additional aid provided by Say Yes plays an important role in increasing college matriculation and encouraging students to attend more selective schools.

Background:"Place-based" scholarships seek to improve student outcomes in urban school districts and promote urban revitalization in economically challenged cities. Say Yes to Education is a unique district-wide school reform effort adopted in Syracuse, NY, in 2008. It includes full-tuition scholarships for public and private universities, coupled with extensive wraparound support services in schools.Objectives:This study uses synthetic control methods to evaluate the effect of Say Yes on district enrollment and graduation rates. It also introduces the synthetic control method and provides guidance for its use in evaluating single-site interventions.Method:Combining school district-level data from the National Center for Education Statistics' Common Core of Data and New York State School Report Cards, this article uses synthetic control methods to construct a synthetic comparison district to estimate counterfactual enrollment and graduation trends for Syracuse.Results:We find that Say Yes to Education was associated with enrollment increases in the Syracuse City School District, a district that had previously experienced decades of sustained enrollment declines. We do not find consistent evidence of changes in graduation rates following adoption of the program.Conclusions:Graduation rate analyses demonstrate that estimates of treatment effects can be sensitive to choices that the researcher has to make in applying synthetic control methods, particularly when pretreatment outcome measures appear to have considerable amounts of noise.

Previous research has established the connection between teleworking and organizational performance, but there remains a need to understand why employees who are eligible for telework programs do not necessarily utilize the programs. This study uses the 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey to examine the effects of being a female supervisor, supportive leadership, and diversity management, and the moderating effects of contextual factors on employee eligibility and participation in telework. We find that both supportive leadership and diversity management reduce the nonparticipation in telework programs of employees who are eligible and willing to telework. We also find that the interaction between being a female supervisor and supportive leadership reduces the nonparticipation in telework programs when employees are eligible for telework. These results imply that female supervisors who use supportive leadership are more likely to contribute to increasing the number of public employees who are able to participate in existing telework programs.

Pay fairness perception is considered a significant determinant of employee turnover. This study analyzes whether public-sector employees' pay fairness perception is promoted when workers are notified of the wage level of similar employees working in other sectors (i.e., relative wage). A randomized survey experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that relative wages matter for pay fairness perception. The results show that informing employees of other workers' wage levels enhances pay fairness perception. The subgroup analysis shows that the effect is more pronounced for employees who are relatively early in their career. The results imply that providing information on relative wage can be an effective way of promoting pay fairness perception, thereby reducing worker turnover and contributing potentially to productivity gains in public-sector organizations where turnover rate is salient.