IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v93y2017icp24-46.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incentives, information and malnutrition: Evidence from an experiment in India

Author

Listed:
  • Singh, Prakarsh
  • Mitra, Sandip

Abstract

This study provides one of the first pieces of evidence comparing the effectiveness of different performance pay contracts among caregivers to improve child health. We carry out a cluster randomized controlled trial in urban slums of Kolkata, India covering 209 childcare centers to test three separate performance pay treatments in addition to providing information on the demand-side. We promise low or high absolute performance incentives to public sector caregivers where each bonus is based on improvements in health of 3–6 year old children under their care. We also test for the impact of relative incentives where the bonus depends upon a worker’s performance relative to her peers. All mothers in the treatment arms are also provided nutritional information. High absolute incentives to workers combined with nutritional information to mothers works to reduce severe malnutrition by 5 percentage points over three months. Relative incentives and low absolute incentives show no significant improvements in child health on average.

Suggested Citation

  • Singh, Prakarsh & Mitra, Sandip, 2017. "Incentives, information and malnutrition: Evidence from an experiment in India," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 24-46.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:93:y:2017:i:c:p:24-46
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.01.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292117300120
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2017.01.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Michael Kremer & Edward Miguel, 2007. "The Illusion of Sustainability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1007-1065.
    3. Singh, Prakarsh, 2016. "Learning and Behavioral Spillovers of Nutritional Information," IZA Discussion Papers 10085, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Fitzsimons, Emla & Malde, Bansi & Mesnard, Alice & Vera-Hernández, Marcos, 2016. "Nutrition, information and household behavior: Experimental evidence from Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 113-126.
    5. 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.
    6. Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, 2000. "Pay Enough or Don't Pay at All," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 791-810.
    7. 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.
    8. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    9. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "The Power of Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 410-414, May.
    10. Kathleen J. Mullen & Richard G. Frank & Meredith B. Rosenthal, 2010. "Can you get what you pay for? Pay‐for‐performance and the quality of healthcare providers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 64-91, March.
    11. Edward C. Norton, 1992. "Incentive Regulation of Nursing Homes: Specification Tests of the Markov Model," NBER Chapters, in: Topics in the Economics of Aging, pages 275-304, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. World Bank, 2006. "Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development : A Strategy for Large Scale Action," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7409, December.
    13. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    14. Norton, Edward C., 1992. "Incentive regulation of nursing homes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 105-128, August.
    15. Bandiera, Oriana & Barankay, Iwan & Rasul, Imran, 2004. "Relative and Absolute Incentives: Evidence on Worker Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 4431, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Paul Glewwe & Nauman Ilias & Michael Kremer, 2010. "Teacher Incentives," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 205-227, July.
    17. Brendon McConnell & Marcos Vera-Hernandez, 2015. "Going beyond simple sample size calculations: a practitioner's guide," IFS Working Papers W15/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    18. de Walque, Damien & Gertler, Paul J. & Bautista-Arredondo, Sergio & Kwan, Ada & Vermeersch, Christel & de Dieu Bizimana, Jean & Binagwaho, Agnès & Condo, Jeanine, 2015. "Using provider performance incentives to increase HIV testing and counseling services in Rwanda," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-9.
    19. Buurman, Margaretha & Delfgaauw, Josse & Dur, Robert & Van den Bossche, Seth, 2012. "Public sector employees: Risk averse and altruistic?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 279-291.
    20. Green, Jerry R & Stokey, Nancy L, 1983. "A Comparison of Tournaments and Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 349-364, June.
    21. David S. Lee, 2009. "Training, Wages, and Sample Selection: Estimating Sharp Bounds on Treatment Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 1071-1102.
    22. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    23. Pascaline Dupas, 2011. "Do Teenagers Respond to HIV Risk Information? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 1-34, January.
    24. Moulton, Brent R., 1986. "Random group effects and the precision of regression estimates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 385-397, August.
    25. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Jack, B. Kelsey, 2014. "No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-17.
    26. Jalan, Jyotsna & Somanathan, E., 2008. "The importance of being informed: Experimental evidence on demand for environmental quality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 14-28, August.
    27. 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.
    28. Muralidharan, Karthik & Sundararaman, Venkatesh, 2011. "Teacher opinions on performance pay: Evidence from India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 394-403, June.
    29. Miller, Grant & Luo, Renfu & Zhang, Linxiu & Sylvia, Sean & Shi, Yaojiang & Foo, Patricia & Zhao, Qiran & Martorell, Reynaldo & Medina, Alexis & Rozelle, Scott, 2012. "Effectiveness of provider incentives for anaemia reduction in rural China: a cluster randomised trial," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 345, pages 1-10.
    30. Behrman, Jere R & Deolalikar, Anil B, 1987. "Will Developing Country Nutrition Improve with Income? A Case Study for Rural South India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 492-507, June.
    31. Singh, Prakarsh, 2015. "Performance pay and information: Reducing child undernutrition in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 141-163.
    32. Hasnain, Zahid & Manning, Nick & Pierskalla Henryk, 2012. "Performance-related pay in the public sector : a review of theory and evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6043, The World Bank.
    33. Derek Neal & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2010. "Left Behind by Design: Proficiency Counts and Test-Based Accountability," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(2), pages 263-283, May.
    34. Propper, Carol & Sutton, Matt & Whitnall, Carolyn & Windmeijer, Frank, 2010. "Incentives and targets in hospital care: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 318-335, April.
    35. 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.
    36. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Edward Miguel & Charu Puri-Sharma, 2006. "Anemia and School Participation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    37. Jere R. Behrman & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2004. "Returns to Birthweight," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 586-601, May.
    38. McKenzie, David, 2012. "Beyond baseline and follow-up: The case for more T in experiments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 210-221.
    39. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    40. Madajewicz, Malgosia & Pfaff, Alexander & van Geen, Alexander & Graziano, Joseph & Hussein, Iftikhar & Momotaj, Hasina & Sylvi, Roksana & Ahsan, Habibul, 2007. "Can information alone change behavior? Response to arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 731-754, November.
    41. Das, Jishnu & Hammer, Jeffrey, 2005. "Which doctor? Combining vignettes and item response to measure clinical competence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 348-383, December.
    42. Prakarsh Singh, 2016. "Learning and Behavioral Spillovers of Nutritional Information," Working Papers id:11268, eSocialSciences.
    43. Harold Alderman & Jere R. Behrman, 2006. "Reducing the Incidence of Low Birth Weight in Low-Income Countries Has Substantial Economic Benefits," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 21(1), pages 25-48.
    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. 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.
    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. Mullins, Jamie T., 2018. "Motivating emissions cleanup: Absolute vs. relative performance standards," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 66-92.
    4. Utteeyo Dasgupta & Subha Mani & Prakarsh Singh, 2020. "Searching for religious discrimination among childcare workers," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 362-382, May.
    5. Singh, Prakarsh & Masters, William A., 2020. "Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).

    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. Singh, Prakarsh & Mitra, Sandip, 2016. "Performance Pay and Malnutrition," IZA Discussion Papers 10084, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Prakarsh Singh & Sandip Mitra, 2015. "Performance Pay and Malnutrition: Evidence from an Experiment targeting Child Malnutrition in West Bengal," NCID Working Papers 05/2015, Navarra Center for International Development, University of Navarra.
    3. 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.
    4. Singh, Prakarsh, 2015. "Performance pay and information: Reducing child undernutrition in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 141-163.
    5. Singh, Prakarsh, 2011. "Performance Pay and Information: Reducing Child Malnutrition in Urban Slums," MPRA Paper 29403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Manoj Mohanan & Katherine Donato & Grant Miller & Yulya Truskinovsky & Marcos Vera-Hernández, 2021. "Different Strokes for Different Folks? Experimental Evidence on the Effectiveness of Input and Output Incentive Contracts for Health Care Providers with Varying Skills," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 34-69, October.
    7. Singh, Prakarsh & Masters, William A., 2020. "Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    8. Victor Lavy, 2009. "Performance Pay and Teachers' Effort, Productivity, and Grading Ethics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1979-2011, December.
    9. Fitzsimons, Emla & Malde, Bansi & Mesnard, Alice & Vera-Hernández, Marcos, 2016. "Nutrition, information and household behavior: Experimental evidence from Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 113-126.
    10. Krämer, Marion & Kumar, Santosh & Vollmer, Sebastian, 2021. "Anemia, diet, and cognitive development: Impact of health information on diet quality and child nutrition in rural India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 495-523.
    11. 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.
    12. Singh, Prakarsh & Masters, William A., 2016. "Behavior Change for Early Childhood Nutrition: Effectiveness of Health Worker Training Depends on Maternal Information in a Randomized Control Trial," IZA Discussion Papers 10375, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Jack, B. Kelsey, 2014. "No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-17.
    14. Maria Cotofan, 2019. "Learning from Praise: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Teachers," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-082/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Derek Neal, 2011. "The Design of Performance Pay in Education," NBER Working Papers 16710, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Oriana Bandiera & Iwan Barankay & Imran Rasul, 2011. "Field Experiments with Firms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 63-82, Summer.
    17. Cilliers, Jacobus & Kasirye, Ibrahim & Leaver, Clare & Serneels, Pieter & Zeitlin, Andrew, 2018. "Pay for locally monitored performance? A welfare analysis for teacher attendance in Ugandan primary schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 69-90.
    18. Isaac Mbiti & Mauricio Romero & Youdi Schipper, 2023. "Designing Effective Teacher Performance Pay Programs: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(653), pages 1968-2000.
    19. Cohen, Jessica & Saran, Indrani, 2018. "The impact of packaging and messaging on adherence to malaria treatment: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 68-95.
    20. Czura, Kristina & Menzel, Andreas & Miotto, Martina, 2024. "Improved menstrual health and the workplace: An RCT with female Bangladeshi garment workers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Performance pay; Nutritional information; Child malnutrition; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    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:eee:eecrev:v:93:y:2017:i:c:p:24-46. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eer .

    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.