IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jafrec/v22y2013isuppl_2p-ii38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Policies and Institutions for Effective Service Delivery: The Need of a Microeconomic and Micropolitical Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Tessa Bold
  • Jakob Svensson

Abstract

The recent political economy literature on institutions for growth views low and ineffective spending on service delivery sectors as a symptom of the underlying institutional environment. But if institutions are the outcome of decisions by policymakers and serve the purpose of benefitting some at the cost of the majority, what can be done to facilitate empowerment and thus the development of inclusive political institutions? In this paper, we argue that a microeconomic approach that explicitly takes political and bureaucratic incentives and constraints into account provides a fruitful, and complementary, way forward. We discuss several promising lines of research. Copyright 2013 , Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Tessa Bold & Jakob Svensson, 2013. "Policies and Institutions for Effective Service Delivery: The Need of a Microeconomic and Micropolitical Approach," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 22(suppl_2), pages -38, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:22:y:2013:i:suppl_2:p:-ii38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jae/ejt012
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Metzler, Johannes & Woessmann, Ludger, 2012. "The impact of teacher subject knowledge on student achievement: Evidence from within-teacher within-student variation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 486-496.
    2. Svensson, Jakob & Björkman Nyqvist, Martina & Yanagizawa-Drott, David, 2012. "Can Good Products Drive Out Bad? Evidence from Local Markets for (Fake?) Antimalarial Medicine in Uganda," CEPR Discussion Papers 9114, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Jishnu Das & Jeffrey Hammer & Kenneth Leonard, 2008. "The Quality of Medical Advice in Low-Income Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 93-114, Spring.
    4. Katherine Casey & Rachel Glennerster & Edward Miguel, 2012. "Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on Aid Impacts Using a Preanalysis Plan," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1755-1812.
    5. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    6. Benjamin A. Olken, 2007. "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 200-249.
    7. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
    8. Claudia Goldin, 1999. "A Brief History of Education in the United States," NBER Historical Working Papers 0119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Nazmul Chaudhury & Jeffrey Hammer & Michael Kremer & Karthik Muralidharan & F. Halsey Rogers, 2006. "Missing in Action: Teacher and Health Worker Absence in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 91-116, Winter.
    10. Martina Björkman & Jakob Svensson, 2009. "Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 735-769.
    11. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Rukmini Banerji & Esther Duflo & Rachel Glennerster & Stuti Khemani, 2010. "Pitfalls of Participatory Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Education in India," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-30, February.
    12. Daron Acemoglu, 2010. "Theory, General Equilibrium, and Political Economy in Development Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 17-32, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Berhanu Abegaz, 2013. "Aid, Accountability, and Institution-Building in Ethiopia: a Comparative Analysis of Donor Practice," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-083, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Abegaz, Berhanu, 2013. "Aid, Accountability, and Institution-Building in Ethiopia: a Comparative Analysis of Donor Practice," WIDER Working Paper Series 083, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dizon-Ross, Rebecca & Dupas, Pascaline & Robinson, Jonathan, 2017. "Governance and the effectiveness of public health subsidies: Evidence from Ghana, Kenya and Uganda," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 150-169.
    2. Karthik Muralidharan & Paul Niehaus, 2017. "Experimentation at Scale," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 103-124, Fall.
    3. Nyqvist, Martina Bjorkman & de Walque, Damien & Svensson, Jakob, 2014. "Information is power : experimental evidence on the long-run impact of community based monitoring," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7015, The World Bank.
    4. Benjamin A. Olken, 2020. "Banerjee, Duflo, Kremer, and the Rise of Modern Development Economics," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 853-878, July.
    5. Elizabeth Beasley & Elise Huillery, 2011. "Understanding Community Participation to Make Services Work," SciencePo Working papers hal-01073687, HAL.
    6. Ezequiel Molina, 2014. "Can Bottom-Up Institutional Reform Improve Service Delivery?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 86775, Inter-American Development Bank.
    7. Abhijit Banerjee & Rema Hanna, 2012. "Corruption [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
      • Banerjee, Abhijit & Hanna, Rema & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2012. "Corruption," Working Paper Series rwp12-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
      • Hanna, Rema N. & Mullainathan, Sendhil & Banerjee, Abhijit, 2012. "Corruption," Scholarly Articles 8830779, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
      • Abhijit Banerjee & Rema Hanna & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2012. "Corruption," Working Papers id:4952, eSocialSciences.
      • Abhijit Banerjee & Sendhil Mullainathan & Rema Hanna, 2012. "Corruption," NBER Working Papers 17968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Darin Christensen & Oeindrila Dube & Johannes Haushofer & Bilal Siddiqi & Maarten Voors, 2021. "Building Resilient Health Systems: Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone and The 2014 Ebola Outbreak," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(2), pages 1145-1198.
    9. Elizabeth Beasley & Elise Huillery, 2011. "Understanding Community Participation to Make Services Work," Working Papers hal-01073687, HAL.
    10. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan & Diana Belo Moreira, 2009. "Corrupting Learning: Evidence from Missing Federal Education Funds in Brazil," Textos para discussão 562, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    11. Molina, Ezequiel, 2014. "Can Bottom-Up Institutional Reform Improve Service Delivery?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6671, Inter-American Development Bank.
    12. Dan Levy, 2019. "Can Transparency and Accountability Programs Improve Health? Experimental Evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania," CID Working Papers 352, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iatqiagpl is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Hasanain, Syed Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2023. "No bulls: Experimental evidence on the impact of veterinarian ratings in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iatqiagpl is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Pascaline Dupas & Edward Miguel, 2016. "Impacts and Determinants of Health Levels in Low-Income Countries," NBER Working Papers 22235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Asian Development Bank (ADB), 2013. "Empowerment and Public Service Delivery in Developing Asia and the Pacific," ADB Reports RPT135565-3, Asian Development Bank (ADB), revised 15 May 2013.
    18. Madajewicz, Malgosia & Tompsett, Anna & Habib, Md. Ahasan, 2021. "How does delegating decisions to communities affect the provision and use of a public service? Evidence from a field experiment in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    19. Muralidharan, Karthik & Das, Jishnu & Holla, Alaka & Mohpal, Aakash, 2017. "The fiscal cost of weak governance: Evidence from teacher absence in India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 116-135.
    20. Arkedis, Jean & Creighton, Jessica & Dixit, Akshay & Fung, Archon & Kosack, Stephen & Levy, Dan & Tolmie, Courtney, 2021. "Can transparency and accountability programs improve health? Experimental evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    21. Arkedis, Jean & Creighton, Jessica & Dixit, Akshay & Fung, Archon & Kosack, Stephen & Levy, Dan & Tolmie, Courtney, 2019. "Can Transparency and Accountability Programs Improve Health? Experimental Evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania," Working Paper Series rwp19-020, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:22:y:2013:i:suppl_2:p:-ii38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.