Allocative Efficiency in Public Budget Distribution

Abstract

An evaluation was conducted of a federally funded demonstration child support- enforcement project. The basic research question was whether a multifaceted program of judicial and public awareness efforts and operational procedures administered to the Massachusetts District Courts was effective in establishing and advocating the use of wage-assignment legislation as an effective collection technique in child support cases. A pre- and posttreatment time-series design compared District Courts to relevant compari son groups on a number of dependent measures. The results of the evaluation study suggest that making clerical-level staff available to approximately one-fourth of the Massachusetts District Courts significantly stabilized total child support collections for AFDC families. It was estimated that the additional child support payments collected in Massachusetts as a result of the treatment program administered to the District Courts represents almost 2% of the total annual child support collections for AFDCfamilies in Massachusetts. Applying this net percentage gain to forecasted total child support collections for AFDC families in FY82 resulted in a forecasted net additional collections of slightly more than $11 million for the next fiscal year, 1982.

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References

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