IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/5279.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Informal payments in developing countries' public health sector

Author

Listed:
  • Liu, Ting
  • Sun, Jiayin

Abstract

In China and some other developing countries' public health sectors, many patients give their doctors a payment outside the official channel before a major treatment. This secret payment has been documented as informal payment in the literature. We argue that the fundamental cause for informal payments is that patients have more information about doctors' skill than the government does. The price, set by the government, for services offered by doctors cannot fully differentiate patients' various needs. As a consequence, informal payment rises as a tool for patients to compete for the skillful doctor. We study the welfare implications of different policies that can potentially be used to regulate such payments. Patient heterogeneity plays a central role in welfare implications of different policies: when patients' willingness-to-pay differs a lot, informal payments should be allowed and when it differs little, informal payments should be banned. Also we show that selling the right to choose physicians publicly always improves social welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Ting & Sun, Jiayin, 2007. "Informal payments in developing countries' public health sector," MPRA Paper 5279, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:5279
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5279/1/MPRA_paper_5279.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(1), pages 1-31.
    2. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    3. Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 1992. "Pervasive Shortages under Socialism," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(2), pages 237-246, Summer.
    4. Arye L. Hillman & John G. Riley, 1989. "Politically Contestable Rents And Transfers," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 17-39, March.
    5. Acemoglu, Daron & Verdier, Thierry, 1998. "Property Rights, Corruption and the Allocation of Talent: A General Equilibrium Approach," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1381-1403, September.
    6. Paula González, 2004. "Should physicians' dual practice be limited? An incentive approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 505-524, June.
    7. Pranab Bardhan, 1997. "Corruption and Development: A Review of Issues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1320-1346, September.
    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. Cherecheş, Răzvan M. & Ungureanu, Marius I. & Sandu, Petru & Rus, Ioana A., 2013. "Defining informal payments in healthcare: A systematic review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 105-114.

    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. Simona Grassi & Ching-to Albert Ma, 2007. "Subsidy Design and Asymmetric Information: Wealth versus Benefits," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2007-033, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    2. Arteaga, Fernando & Desierto, Desiree & Koyama, Mark, 2024. "Shipwrecked by rents," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    3. Fredriksson, Per G. & Vollebergh, Herman R. J. & Dijkgraaf, Elbert, 2004. "Corruption and energy efficiency in OECD countries: theory and evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 207-231, March.
    4. Mazza, Isidoro & van Winden, Frans, 2008. "An endogenous policy model of hierarchical government," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 133-149, January.
    5. Aidt, Toke & Dutta, Jayasri & Sena, Vania, 2008. "Governance regimes, corruption and growth: Theory and evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 195-220, June.
    6. John Duggan & Jacque Gao, 2020. "Lobbying as a multidimensional tug of war," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(1), pages 141-166, January.
    7. Cotton, Christopher, 2009. "Should we tax or cap political contributions? A lobbying model with policy favors and access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 831-842, August.
    8. Barbier, Edward B. & Damania, Richard & Leonard, Daniel, 2005. "Corruption, trade and resource conversion," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 276-299, September.
    9. Daniel Brou & Michele Ruta, 2013. "Rent-Seeking, Market Structure, and Growth," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(3), pages 878-901, July.
    10. Edward Barbier, 2010. "Corruption and the Political Economy of Resource-Based Development: A Comparison of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 46(4), pages 511-537, August.
    11. Kolomak Evgeniya, 2004. "How high are the barriers of the regional price regulation in Russia?," EERC Working Paper Series 04-11e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    12. Tugrul Gurgur, 2016. "Voice, exit and local capture in public provision of private goods," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 397-424, November.
    13. Levine, David K. & Modica, Salvatore, 2017. "Size, fungibility, and the strength of lobbying organizations," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 71-83.
    14. J. Amegashie, 2004. "A political economy model of immigration quotas," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 255-267, November.
    15. Damania, Richard & Fredriksson, Per G. & List, John A., 2003. "Trade liberalization, corruption, and environmental policy formation: theory and evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 490-512, November.
    16. Richard T Boylan, 1998. "Corruption and staff expenditures in the U.S. Congress," Public Economics 9804002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. John K. Wilson & Richard Damania, 2003. "Corruption, Political Competition and Environmental Policy," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2003-09, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    18. Mr. Muthukumara Mani & Mr. Per G. Fredriksson, 2002. "The Rule of Law and the Pattern of Environment Protection," IMF Working Papers 2002/049, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Richard Damania & Per Fredriksson & Muthukumara Mani, 2004. "The Persistence of Corruption and Regulatory Compliance Failures: Theory and Evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 363-390, February.
    20. Fredriksson, Per G. & Wollscheid, Jim R., 2008. "The political economy of investment: The case of pollution control technology," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 53-72, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    informal payments; public health sector; welfare; efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • H44 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Goods: Mixed Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:5279. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.