IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v51y2015i2p116-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Economy of Bad Data: Evidence from African Survey and Administrative Statistics

Author

Listed:
  • Justin Sandefur
  • Amanda Glassman

Abstract

Across multiple African countries, discrepancies between administrative data and independent household surveys suggest official statistics systematically exaggerate development progress. We provide evidence for two distinct explanations of these discrepancies. First, governments misreport to foreign donors, as in the case of a results-based aid programme rewarding reported vaccination rates. Second, national governments are themselves misled by frontline service providers, as in the case of primary education, where official enrolment numbers diverged from survey estimates after funding shifted from user fees to per pupil government grants. Both syndromes highlight the need for incentive compatibility between data systems and funding rules.

Suggested Citation

  • Justin Sandefur & Amanda Glassman, 2015. "The Political Economy of Bad Data: Evidence from African Survey and Administrative Statistics," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 116-132, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:51:y:2015:i:2:p:116-132
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2014.968138
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2014.968138
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220388.2014.968138?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. Tessa Bold, Mwangi Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Justin Sandefur, 2011. "The High Return to Private Schooling in a Low-Income Country- Working Paper 279," Working Papers 279, Center for Global Development.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Wamalwa, Fredrick M. & Burns, Justine, 2018. "Private schools and student learning achievements in Kenya," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 114-124.
    2. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & David S. Blakeslee & Matthew Hoover & Leigh Linden & Dhushyanth Raju & Stephen P. Ryan, 2022. "Delivering Education to the Underserved through a Public-Private Partnership Program in Pakistan," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(3), pages 399-416, May.
    3. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2013. "The Aggregate Effect of School Choice: Evidence from a Two-stage Experiment in India," NBER Working Papers 19441, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Singh, Abhijeet, 2015. "Private school effects in urban and rural India: Panel estimates at primary and secondary school ages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 16-32.
    5. Maluccio, John A. & Hussein, Mohamed & Abuya, Benta & Muluve, Eva & Muthengi, Eunice & Austrian, Karen, 2018. "Adolescent girls’ primary school mobility and educational outcomes in urban Kenya," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 75-87.
    6. Lant Pritchett, Justin Sandefur, 2013. "Context Matters for Size: Why External Validity Claims and Development Practice Don't Mix-Working Paper 336," Working Papers 336, Center for Global Development.

    More about this item

    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:taf:jdevst:v:51:y:2015:i:2:p:116-132. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    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.