Scarcity in public service agencies requires a prioritization of resources, and inherent to all prioritizations is a comparison of the cases. Despite the amount of research that has been conducted on the prioritization process, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the underlying comparison. Drawing on insight from the street-level bureaucracy literature, this study suggests that the administrative grouping of citizens in public service agencies influences the comparison so that the allocation of public services not only depends on a citizen’s need, but also on the needs of the other citizens assigned to the same agency. In a fixed effects analysis, based on registry data on more than 300,000 students, this study exploits the as-good-as-random assignment of students to classes within schools to analyze the influence of classroom composition on referrals to special education in Danish primary school. The result shows that students with better-performing peers are considerably more likely to be referred to special education than equally low-achieving students in lower-performing classes. This finding substantiates the argument of frame of reference effects in street-level bureaucracy and illustrates an unwarranted distributive consequence of the administrative grouping of citizens, thereby initiating a theoretical discussion of how such an influence can be mitigated.

中文翻译：

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公共服务提供中的行政分组和平等

公共服务机构的稀缺性需要对资源进行优先排序，所有优先排序的内在因素是对案例的比较。尽管已经对优先排序过程进行了大量研究，但令人惊讶的是，对基本比较的关注却很少。本研究借鉴街道级官僚文献的见解，认为公共服务机构中公民的行政分组会影响比较，因此公共服务的分配不仅取决于公民的需要，还取决于其他人的需要。分配给同一机构的公民。在一项固定效应分析中，基于超过 300,000 名学生的注册数据，本研究利用学生随机分配到学校的班级来分析课堂组成对丹麦小学特殊教育转介的影响。结果表明，与表现较差的班级中同样成绩不佳的学生相比，同龄人表现较好的学生被转介到特殊教育的可能性要大得多。这一发现证实了街头官僚机构中参考框架效应的论点，并说明了公民行政分组的无根据的分配后果，从而引发了关于如何减轻这种影响的理论讨论。结果表明，与表现较差的班级中同样成绩不佳的学生相比，同龄人表现较好的学生被转介到特殊教育的可能性要大得多。这一发现证实了街头官僚机构中参考框架效应的论点，并说明了公民行政分组的无根据的分配后果，从而引发了关于如何减轻这种影响的理论讨论。结果表明，与表现较差的班级中同样成绩不佳的学生相比，同龄人表现较好的学生被转介到特殊教育的可能性要大得多。这一发现证实了街头官僚机构中参考框架效应的论点，并说明了公民行政分组的无根据的分配后果，从而引发了关于如何减轻这种影响的理论讨论。