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Data and Policy Decisions: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan

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Listed:
  • Michael Callen
  • Saad Gulzar
  • Syed Ali Hasanain
  • Muhammad Yasir Khan
  • Arman B. Rezaee

Abstract

We evaluate a program in Pakistan that equips government health inspectors with a smartphone app which channels data on rural clinics to senior policy makers. The system led to rural clinics being inspected 104% more often after 6 months, but only 43.8% more often after a year, with the latter estimate not attaining significance at conventional levels. There is also no clear evidence that the increase in inspections led to increases in general staff attendance. In addition, we test whether senior officials act on the information provided by the system. Focusing only on districts where the app is deployed, we find that highlighting poorly performing facilities on a dashboard viewed by supervisors raises doctor attendance by 75%. Our results indicate that technology may be able to mobilize data to useful effect, even in low capacity settings

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Callen & Saad Gulzar & Syed Ali Hasanain & Muhammad Yasir Khan & Arman B. Rezaee, 2020. "Data and Policy Decisions: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan," NBER Working Papers 27678, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27678
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    Cited by:

    1. Kalaj, Jozefina & Rogger, Daniel & Somani, Ravi, 2022. "Bureaucrat time-use: Evidence from a survey experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    2. Andrew Dustan & Juan Manuel Hernandez-Agramonte & Stanislao Maldonado, 2018. "Motivating bureaucrats with non-monetary incentives when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale," Natural Field Experiments 00664, The Field Experiments Website.
    3. Shuguang Jiang & Marie Claire Villeval, 2022. "Dishonesty in Developing Countries -What Can We Learn From Experiments?," Working Papers hal-03899654, HAL.
    4. Sultan Mehmood, 2020. "Judicial Independence and Development: Evidence from Pakistan," Working Papers halshs-03054106, HAL.
    5. Yuehao Bai & Meng Hsuan Hsieh & Jizhou Liu & Max Tabord-Meehan, 2022. "Revisiting the Analysis of Matched-Pair and Stratified Experiments in the Presence of Attrition," Papers 2209.11840, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    6. Callen, Michael & Gulzar, Saad & Hasanain, Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2023. "The political economy of public sector absence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    7. Sultan Mehmood, 2021. "The impact of Presidential appointment of judges: Montesquieu or the Federalists?," AMSE Working Papers 2118, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    8. Harris, Donna & Borcan , Oana & Serra, Danila & Telli, Henry & Schettini, Bruno & Dercon, Stefan, 2024. "Proud to Belong: The Impact of Ethics Training on Police Officers in Ghana," CEPR Discussion Papers 19141, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Karthik Muralidharan & Paul Niehaus & Sandip Sukhtankar & Jeffrey Weaver, 2021. "Improving Last-Mile Service Delivery Using Phone-Based Monitoring," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 52-82, April.
    10. Donna Harris & Oana Borcan & Danila Serra & Henry Telli & Bruno Schettini & Stefan Dercon, 2022. "Proud to belong: The impact of ethics training on police officers," CSAE Working Paper Series 2022-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    11. Ernesto Dal Bó & Frederico Finan & Nicholas Y. Li & Laura Schechter, 2021. "Information Technology and Government Decentralization: Experimental Evidence From Paraguay," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(2), pages 677-701, March.
    12. Dustan, Andrew & Maldonado, Stanislao & Hernandez-Agramonte, Juan Manuel, 2018. "Motivating bureaucrats with non-monetary incentives when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale field experiments in Peru," MPRA Paper 90952, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Gallegos, Sebastian & Roseth, Benjamin & Cuesta, Ana & Sánchez, Mario, 2023. "Increasing the take-up of public health services: An at-scale experiment on digital government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    14. Sultan Mehmood & Bakhtawar Ali, 2024. "Judicial Capture," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(659), pages 1287-1301.
    15. Sultan Mehmood, 2021. "The impact of Presidential appointment of judges: Montesquieu or the Federalists?," Working Papers halshs-03161933, HAL.
    16. Sultan Mehmood, 2020. "Judicial Independence and Development: Evidence from Pakistan," AMSE Working Papers 2041, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    17. Eric Rougier & François Combarnous & Yves-André Fauré, 2022. "Political turnover, public employment, and local economic development: New empirical evidence on the impact of local political dynasties in the Brazilian “Nordeste”," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(4), pages 2069-2097, August.
    18. Yuehao Bai & Meng Hsuan Hsieh & Jizhou Liu & Max Tabord‐Meehan, 2024. "Revisiting the analysis of matched‐pair and stratified experiments in the presence of attrition," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 256-268, March.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

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