Between all the talk of fiscal commissions and efficiency agencies, it seems like the question of the day is how to make the US government operate more proficiently. There is no shortage of ideas on what should be cut and by how much. Before any actions are taken, officials should take a look at a recent research paper published by a set of economists in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the profession’s most esteemed journal, that provides a case study in effectiveness.
The study is an accounting of the cost of in-person audits carried out by the Internal Revenue Service ...