IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csa/wpaper/2011-13.html

Conflict of interest as a barrier to local accountability

Author

Listed:
  • Abigail Barr
  • Andrew Zeitlin

Abstract

Using a specially designed lab-type experiment conducted in the field, we compare the willingness of head teachers, centrally appointed public servants, and community representatives to hold Ugandan primary school teachers to account. We find no difference in the willingness of centrally appointed public servants and community representatives. However, head teachers are significantly less willing to punish teachers whose performance falls 20 to 40 percent below a generally accepted benchmark. In addition, head teachers are twice as likely to punish teachers who “over-perform”, a behaviour akin to punishing rate-busters.

Suggested Citation

  • Abigail Barr & Andrew Zeitlin, 2011. "Conflict of interest as a barrier to local accountability," CSAE Working Paper Series 2011-13, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2011-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:86114540-0490-47c9-9b58-d1ba1a12f8dc
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Juan Camilo C√°rdenas & Natalia Candelo & Alejandro Gaviria & Sandra Polania, 2007. "Discrimination in the provision of social services to the poor: a field experimental study," Documentos CEDE 3885, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    2. 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.
    3. Martina Björkman & Jakob Svensson, 2009. "Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 735-769.
    4. Abigail Barr & Andrew Zeitlin, 2010. "Dictator games in the lab and in nature: External validity tested and investigated in Ugandan primary schools," CSAE Working Paper Series 2010-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    5. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Rukmini Banerji & Esther Duflo & Rachel Glennerster & Stuti Khemani, 2010. "Pitfalls of Participatory Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Education in India," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-30, February.
    6. Elster, Jon, 1989. "Social Norms and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 99-117, Fall.
    7. Michael Kremer & Alaka Holla, 2009. "Improving Education in the Developing World: What Have We Learned from Randomized Evaluations?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 513-545, May.
    8. Juan Camilo Cárdenas & Natalia Candelo & Alejandro Gaviria & Sandra Polania, 2007. "Discrimination in the provision of social services to the poor: a field experimental study," DOCUMENTOS CEDE 003885, UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES-CEDE.
    9. Francesco Guala, 2002. "On the scope of experiments in economics: comments on Siakantaris," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 26(2), pages 261-267, March.
    10. Barr, Abigail & Lindelow, Magnus & Serneels, Pieter, 2010. "Corrigendum to "Corruption in public service delivery: An experimental analysis" [J. Econ. Behav. Organ. 72 (1) (2009) 225-239]," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 294-296, February.
    11. Benjamin A. Olken, 2007. "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 200-249.
    12. Menno Pradhan & Daniel Suryadarma & Amanda Beatty & Maisy Wong & Arya Gaduh & Armida Alisjahbana & Rima Prama Artha, 2014. "Improving Educational Quality through Enhancing Community Participation: Results from a Randomized Field Experiment in Indonesia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 105-126, April.
    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. Fox, Jonathan A., 2015. "Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 346-361.
    2. Fiala,Nathan V. & Premand,Patrick, 2018. "Social accountability and service delivery : experimental evidence from Uganda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8449, The World Bank.

    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. Abigail Barr & Lawrence Bategeka & Madina Guloba & Ibrahim Kasirye & Frederick Mugisha & Pieter Serneels & Andrew Zeitlin, 2012. "Management and Motivation in Ugandan Primary Schools: An impact evaluation report," Working Papers PIERI 2012-14, PEP-PIERI.
    2. Isaac Mbiti & Danila Serra, 2022. "Health workers’ behavior, patient reporting and reputational concerns: lab-in-the-field experimental evidence from Kenya," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 514-556, April.
    3. Salmon, Timothy C. & Serra, Danila, 2017. "Corruption, social judgment and culture: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 64-78.
    4. Benjamin A. Olken, 2020. "Banerjee, Duflo, Kremer, and the Rise of Modern Development Economics," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 853-878, July.
    5. Elizabeth Beasley & Elise Huillery, 2011. "Understanding Community Participation to Make Services Work," SciencePo Working papers hal-01073687, HAL.
    6. Barde, Julia Alexa, 2017. "What Determines Access to Piped Water in Rural Areas? Evidence from Small-Scale Supply Systems in Rural Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 88-110.
    7. Ezequiel Molina, 2014. "Can Bottom-Up Institutional Reform Improve Service Delivery?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 86775, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. Abhijit Banerjee & Rema Hanna, 2012. "Corruption [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
      • Abhijit Banerjee & Sendhil Mullainathan & Rema Hanna, 2012. "Corruption," NBER Working Papers 17968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Abhijit Banerjee & Rema Hanna & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2012. "Corruption," Working Papers id:4952, eSocialSciences.
      • Banerjee, Abhijit & Hanna, Rema & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2012. "Corruption," Working Paper Series rwp12-023, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
      • Hanna, Rema N. & Mullainathan, Sendhil & Banerjee, Abhijit, 2012. "Corruption," Scholarly Articles 8830779, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    9. Tessa Bold & Jakob Svensson, 2013. "Policies and Institutions for Effective Service Delivery: The Need of a Microeconomic and Micropolitical Approach," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 22(suppl_2), pages -38, August.
    10. Julia Alexa Barde, 2014. "What Determines Access to Piped Water in Rural Areas?Evidence from Small-scale Supply Systems in Rural Brazil," Discussion Paper Series 30, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Dec 2014.
    11. Tessa Bold & Ezequiel Molina & Abla Safir, 2017. "Clientelism in the Public Sector," World Bank Publications - Reports 26257, The World Bank Group.
    12. Molina, Ezequiel, 2014. "Can Bottom-Up Institutional Reform Improve Service Delivery?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6671, Inter-American Development Bank.
    13. Fox, Jonathan A., 2015. "Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 346-361.
    14. Elizabeth Beasley & Elise Huillery, 2011. "Understanding Community Participation to Make Services Work," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-01073687, HAL.
    15. Barr, Abigail & Packard, Truman & Serra, Danila, 2012. "Participatory accountability and collective action : evidence from field experiments in Albanian schools," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6027, The World Bank.
    16. Dmitry Ryvkin & Danila Serra & James Tremewan, 2015. "I paid a bribe: Information Sharing and Extortionary Corruption," Working Papers wp2015_07_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    17. Hasanain, Syed Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2023. "No bulls: Experimental evidence on the impact of veterinarian ratings in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    18. Jiang, Shuguang & Wei, Qian & Zhao, Lei, 2024. "Synergizing anti-corruption strategies: Group monitoring and endogenous crackdown – An experimental investigation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    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:csa:wpaper:2011-13. 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: Julia Coffey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.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.