This dissertation consists of three essays examining and analyzing Michigan property assessment practices. The first essay estimates the property assessment expenditure function for Michigan local government (townships and cities) using panel data with 1,310 governmental units for years 2015 through 2017. Results show that assessment expenditure is related to district size and government type, but not related to assessor type or the required assessors certification level.The second essay measures and compares the performance of different types of Michigan property assessors. By analyzing over five million properties in Michigan from 2008 through 2016, I find that neither private nor public property assessors are always superior to the other. Both approaches have relative strengths depending on community characteristics. My analysis and subsequent comparison between the existing and a more optimal arrangement of assessor types suggests a potential misallocation in Michigan. Scenario forecasts suggest that merging small assessment jurisdictions coupled with moving toward a more optimal arrangement would improve assessment performance by as much as 32 percent. The third essay uses detailed parcel level housing price and property tax data during and following the financial crisis for five counties that comprise the Detroit Metropolitan Area in Michigan to evaluate the relationship between changing housing prices and property assessments. My findings are generally consistent with previous research in that there is about a three-year lag between the housing price changes and changes in property assessments for tax purposes. However, I also find that before the crisis-hit struggling communities tended to over-state assessments to support property tax revenue streams. Assessment adjustments to market declines in these places also lagged in other fiscally healthier cities. On a positive note, the evaluation shows that local authorities in these struggling communities used the financial crisis period to align assessments more closely to actual market conditions as per Michigan property assessment policies.
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