Solutions Statistics

The town council of Pig Mountain, Vermont, is concerned about the large number of delinquent tax bil

Question: The town council of Pig Mountain, Vermont, is concerned about the large number of delinquent tax bills among its residents. Borrowing a strategy from a nearby town, the Council works with the Pig Mountain Gazette to publish a weekly listing of tax delinquents. To test the effectiveness of the technique in its first six months, the Council randomly assigns 50 tax delinquents to the list published in the newspaper and 50 to the normal mailing of tax delinquency notices. Apply of the five steps of hypothesis testing and interpret the results.

Table 3. The Impact of Public Shaming on Local Tax Payments in Pig Mountain, Connecticut
Tax payments	Tax delinquency notice in newspaper		Total
Tax payments	Not publicly shamed	Publicly shamed	Total
Made no tax payment	44	11	55
Made no tax payment	88.0%	22.0%	55.0%
Made some or all of tax payment	6	39	45
Made some or all of tax payment	12.0%	78.0%	45.0%
Total	50	50	100
Total	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%