Property Tax Collector Performance and Pay

The few empirical studies on the relationship between performance and pay in the public sector have been unable to measure adequately public sector output This paper overcomes this measurement problem by focusing on the pay of the local property tax collector, for whom an output indicator—the property tax collection rate—can be objectively quantified. The empirical results suggest that higher levels of performance cause an increased amount of pay, ceteris pahbus. No evidence is found, however, linking higher pay to increased performance.