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Performance Pay and Information: Reducing Child Malnutrition in Urban Slums

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  • Singh, Prakarsh

Abstract

This paper provides evidence for the effectiveness of performance pay to government workers and how performance pay interacts with demand-side information. In an experiment covering 145 child day-care centres, I implement three separate treatments. First, I engineer an exogenous change in compensation for childcare workers from fixed wages to performance pay. Second, I only provide mothers with information without incentivizing the workers. Third, I combine the first two treatments. This helps us identify if performance pay and public information are complements or substitutes in reducing child malnutrition. I find that combining incentives to workers and information to mothers reduces weight-for-age malnutrition by 4.2% in 3 months, although individually the effects are negligible. This complementarity is shown to be driven by better mother-worker communication and the mother feeding more calorific food at home. There is also a sustained long-run positive impact of the combined treatment after the experiment concluded.

Suggested Citation

  • Singh, Prakarsh, 2011. "Performance Pay and Information: Reducing Child Malnutrition in Urban Slums," MPRA Paper 29403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:29403
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Mani, Subha & Singh, Prakarsh, 2016. "Searching for Religious Discrimination among Anganwadi Workers in India: An Experimental Investigation," IZA Discussion Papers 10048, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Singh, Prakarsh & Masters, William A., 2017. "Impact of caregiver incentives on child health: Evidence from an experiment with Anganwadi workers in India," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 219-231.
    3. Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Mani, Subha & Singh, Prakarsh, 2016. "Searching for Religious Discrimination among Anganwadi Workers in India: An Experimental Investigation," IZA Discussion Papers 10048, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Singh, Prakarsh, 2011. "Spillovers in learning and behavior: Evidence from a nutritional information campaign in urban slums," MPRA Paper 33362, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Grant Miller & Kimberly Singer Babiarz, 2013. "Pay-for-Performance Incentives in Low- and Middle-Income Country Health Programs," NBER Working Papers 18932, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Renfu Luo & Grant Miller & Scott Rozelle & Sean Sylvia & Marcos Vera-Hernández, 2015. "Can Bureaucrats Really Be Paid Like CEOs? School Administrator Incentives for Anemia Reduction in Rural China," NBER Working Papers 21302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Evan Borkum & Anu Rangarajan & Dana Rotz & Swetha Sridharan & Sukhmani Sethi & Mercy Manorajini, "undated". "Evaluation of the Team-Based Goals and Performance-Based Incentives (TBGI) Innovation in Bihar," Mathematica Policy Research Reports d8e1097122ff47a6bf42580c8, Mathematica Policy Research.
    8. repec:mpr:mprres:8037 is not listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Performance pay; Child malnutrition; Public health; Information; Complementarity; Nutrition; Public sector; Urban slums;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • L38 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Public Policy
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

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