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CHAPTER 4. YEAR-END SPENDING 181 Congress, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lee Lofthus may have been suggesting a connection between those components of DOJ that contribute expiring funds to the working capital fund and those that benefit from it when he noted that the FBI was both the biggest contributor to the fund and the biggest beneficiary (?). Given that rollover funds at DOJ are used for I.T. purposes, one might expect to see little or no end-of-year spike in I.T. spending, because I.T. components of the agency will know that they will directly benefit from funds contributed to the working capital fund. This is indeed the case. In the comprehensive FPDS data, only 3.4 percent of DOJ’s I.T. spending occurs in the last week—the 19th lowest of the 21 major agencies. In the I.T. dashboard data, DOJ has 16 ongoing major I.T. investments, with planned total spending of just over $5.1 billion. Only 1 investment occurred in the last week of year. The $99 million cost of this investment implies that 1.9 percent of DOJ spending occurred in the last week compared to an average of 11.0 percent across the other agencies. Although the sample size of investments is very small, the quality of DOJ’s year- end spending is high. The one last week investment has the highest quality score of all major I.T. investments at the agency. Difference-in-differences estimates presented in Table 4.8, which allow us to control for investment characteristics, suggest that the DOJ pattern is sufficiently unusual to be statistically significant—even though it is identified off of a single end-of-year observation. Specifically, difference-in-differences point estimates indicate that year-end quality increases by 2.0 to 3.5 categorical levels at DOJ relative to other agencies. The p-values on the interaction variable are less than 0.01 in all specifications. Despite the statistical and economic significance of the estimates, we are hesitant to draw strong conclusions from the estimated effect. In addition to the small number of projects, the fact that the effect is identified off of a single agency raises the potential for bias from unobserved organizational characteristics. Nevertheless, the evidence that exists appears consistent with the prediction that rollover increases year-end quality.
CHAPTER 4. YEAR-END SPENDING 182 4.6 Conclusion Our model of an organization facing a fixed period in which it must spend its budget resources made three predictions. We have confirmed all three of them using data on U.S. federal contracting. First, there is a surge of spending at the end of the year. Second, end of year spending is of lower quality. Third, permitting the rollover of spending into subsequent periods leads to higher quality. Because we cannot identify the exact mechanism producing the decline in spending quality at the end of the year, it is difficult to draw firm policy conclusions from the result. If the low spending quality comes from agencies squandering end of year resources on low priority projects, possibly compounded by insufficient management attention during the end of year spending rush, then allowing for rollover of unused balances or switching to two-year budgeting might improve spending quality. But as long as future agency budgets are based in part on whether agencies exhausted their resources in the current period, there will still be an incentive for year-end spending surges. And unless the rollover balances stay with the same part of the organization that managed to save them, agency subcomponents will still have an incentive to use up their allocations. An alternative approach would be to apply greater scrutiny to end-of-the-year spending with the presumption that any spending above levels occurring earlier in the year was unwarranted. This latter approach could also be the proper management prescription if low quality end-of-year spending results from a correlation between acquisition officer skill and a tendency to procrastinate—agencies would want to give greater attention to end of year contracts because the acquisition officials responsible for them need more oversight. In evaluating possible policy reforms one should not lose sight of the potential benefits of one-year budget periods. The annual appropriations cycle may provide benefits from greater Congressional control over executive branch operations. More- over, the use-it-or-lose it feature of appropriated funds may push projects out the door that would otherwise languish due to bureaucratic delays.
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ESSAYS IN PUBLIC FINANCE AND INDUST
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I certify that I have read this dis
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insurance choice. Among other thing
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Acknowledgements I am deeply thankf
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Contents Preface iv Acknowledgement
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2.5.3 The Value of Plan Choice ....
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List of Tables 1.1 Asset Exemption
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4.9 First Week Contract Spending fo
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4.3 I.T. Contracting by Week ......
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 2 of the dead
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 4 relevant le
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 6 superficial
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 8 After treat
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 12 newly edit
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 15 bound of t
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 20 or coverag
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 22 homestead
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 24 log seizab
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 26 on the bas
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 28 to seizabl
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 31 CARA utili
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 33 Puzzle 3:
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 35 of income
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 40 TaxSim pro
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Payments CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 42 $
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OOP payments CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY
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ln(seizable sssets) CHAPTER 1. BANK
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50 60 70 80 90 100 Insurance covera
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Pr(WTP > premium) CHAPTER 1. BANKRU
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 52 Table 1.1:
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 62 Table 1.11
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CHAPTER 1. BANKRUPTCY 64 Table 1.14
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CHAPTER 2. HEALTH PLAN CHOICE 66 pl
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CHAPTER 2. HEALTH PLAN CHOICE 68 ar
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CHAPTER 2. HEALTH PLAN CHOICE 70 pl
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CHAPTER 2. HEALTH PLAN CHOICE 111 F
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CHAPTER 2. HEALTH PLAN CHOICE 113 6
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Chapter 3 Private Coverage and Publ
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CHAPTER 3. MEDIGAP 119 be of intere
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CHAPTER 3. MEDIGAP 121 hazard for i
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CHAPTER 3. MEDIGAP 123 have benefit
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CHAPTER 3. MEDIGAP 128 We use boots
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