Infrastructure, Incentives and Institutions

Nava  Ashraf; Edward L. Glaeser; Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto

Working Paper | 2016

Infrastructure, Incentives and Institutions

by Nava Ashraf, Edward L. Glaeser and Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto

Abstract

Cities generate negative, as well as positive, externalities; addressing those externalities requires both infrastructure and institutions. Providing clean water and removing refuse requires water and sewer pipes, but the urban poor are often unwilling to pay for the costs of that piping. Standard welfare economics teaches us that either subsidies or Pigouvian fines can solve that problem, but both solutions are problematic when institutions are weak. Subsidies lead to waste and corruption; fines lead to extortion of the innocent. Zambia has attempted to solve its problem with subsidies alone, but the subsidies have been too small to solve the “last-mile problem,” and so most poor households remain unconnected to the water and sewer system. In nineteenth-century New York, subsidies also proved insufficient and were largely replaced by a penalty-based system. We present a model that illustrates the complementarity between infrastructure and institutions and provides conditions for whether fines, subsidies, or a combination of both are the optimal response. One point of the model is that the optimal fine is often not a draconian penalty but a mild charge that is small enough to avoid extortion.

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Urban Development; Organizations; City; Infrastructure; Zambia;

Language: English

Format: Print

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Ashraf, Nava, Edward L. Glaeser, and Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto. "Infrastructure, Incentives and Institutions." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 21910, January 2016.

Since 2003, Zambia has been engaged in a large-scale, centrally coordinated national anti-Malaria campaign, which has become a model in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper aims at quantifying the individual and macro-level benefits of this campaign, which involved mass distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, indoor residual spraying, rapid diagnostic tests, and artemisinin-based combination therapy. We discuss the timing and regional coverage of the program and critically review the available health and program rollout data. To estimate the health benefits associated with the program rollout, we use both population-based morbidity measures from the Demographic and Health Surveys and health facility-based mortality data as reported in the national Health Management Information System. While we find rather robust correlations between the rollout of bed nets and subsequent improvements in our health measures, the link between regional spraying and individual health level appears rather weak in the data.

While remittance flows to developing countries are very large, it is unknown whether migrants desire more control over how remittances are used. This research uses a randomized field experiment to investigate the importance of migrant control over the use of remittances. In partnership with a Salvadoran bank, we offered US-based migrants from El Salvador bank accounts in their home country into which they could send remittances. We randomly varied migrant control over El Salvador-based savings by offering different types of accounts across treatment groups. Migrants offered the greatest degree of control over savings accumulated the most savings at the partner bank, compared to others offered less or no control over savings. Effects of this treatment on savings are concentrated among migrants who expressed demand for control over remittances in the baseline survey. We also find positive spillovers of our savings intervention in the form of increased savings at other banks (specifically, banks in the U.S.). We interpret the effects we find as arising from the joint effect of the bank account offers and the marketing pitch made to study participants by our project staff.

Article | Journal of Public Economics | December 2014

No Margin, No Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for Public Services Delivery

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and B. Kelsey Jack

A substantial body of research investigates the effect of pay for performance in firms, yet less is known about the effect of non-financial rewards, especially in organizations that hire individuals to perform tasks with positive social spillovers. We conduct a field experiment in which agents recruited by a public health organization to sell condoms are randomly allocated to four groups. Agents in the control group are hired as volunteers, whereas agents in the three treatment groups receive, respectively, a small monetary margin on each pack sold, a large margin, and a non-financial reward. The analysis yields three main findings. First, non-financial rewards are more effective at eliciting effort than either financial rewards or the volunteer contract and are also the most cost-effective of the four schemes. Second, non-financial rewards leverage intrinsic motivation and, contrary to existing laboratory evidence, financial incentives do not appear to crowd it out. Third, the responses to both types of incentives are stronger when their relative value is higher. Indeed, financial rewards are effective at motivating the poorest agents, and non-financial rewards are more effective when the peer group is larger. Overall, the findings demonstrate the power of non-financial rewards to motivate agents in settings where there are limits to the use of financial incentives.

Keywords: incentives; non-monetary rewards; intrinsic motivation; Motivation and Incentives; Employees; Service Industry; Health Industry;

Citation:

Ashraf, Nava, Oriana Bandiera, and B. Kelsey Jack. "No Margin, No Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for Public Services Delivery." Journal of Public Economics 120 (December 2014): 1–17. View Details

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