IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nva/unnvaa/wp05-2015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Performance Pay and Malnutrition: Evidence from an Experiment targeting Child Malnutrition in West Bengal

Author

Listed:
  • Prakarsh Singh
  • Sandip Mitra

Abstract

We carry out a randomized controlled experiment in West Bengal India to test three separate performance pay treatments in the public health sector. Performance is judged on improvements in child malnutrition. First, we exogenously change wages of government employed child care workers through a basic level of absolute incentives. The second treatment introduces high absolute incentives. Finally, we also test for the impact of basic relative incentives on child health. All treatments include supplying mothers with recipe books. The main results suggest that high absolute incentives reduce severe malnutrition by about 6.3 percentage points over three months. There are no signi?cant e¤ects on health outcomes of basic absolute or basic relative incentives. Results are robust to controlling for prior trends, propensity score matching, and reversion-to-the-mean. This result is consistent with a reported increase in protein-rich diet at home in the high absolute treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:nva:unnvaa:wp05-2015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ncid.unav.edu/download/file/fid/495
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Gertler, Paul & Vermeersch, Christel, 2012. "Using performance incentives to improve health outcomes," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6100, The World Bank.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "The Power of Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 410-414, May.
    7. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2005. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 616-636, June.
    8. Norton, Edward C., 1992. "Incentive regulation of nursing homes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 105-128, August.
    9. Bandiera, Oriana & Ashraf, Nava & Jack, Kelsey, 2012. "No margin, no mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for Pro-Social Tasks," CEPR Discussion Papers 8834, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Joseph J. Doyle Jr. & John A. Graves & Jonathan Gruber & Samuel A. Kleiner, 2015. "Measuring Returns to Hospital Care: Evidence from Ambulance Referral Patterns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(1), pages 170-214.
    14. 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.
    15. Moulton, Brent R., 1986. "Random group effects and the precision of regression estimates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 385-397, August.
    16. 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.
    17. Figlio, David N. & Kenny, Lawrence W., 2007. "Individual teacher incentives and student performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 901-914, June.
    18. Jere R. Behrman & Susan W. Parker & Petra E. Todd & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2015. "Aligning Learning Incentives of Students and Teachers: Results from a Social Experiment in Mexican High Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(2), pages 325-364.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. Singh, Prakarsh, 2015. "Performance pay and information: Reducing child undernutrition in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 141-163.
    22. Figlio, David N. & Winicki, Joshua, 2005. "Food for thought: the effects of school accountability plans on school nutrition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 381-394, February.
    23. Shenila Rawal & Geeta Kingdon, 2010. "Akin to my teacher: Does caste, religious or gender distance between student and teacher matter? Some evidence from India," DoQSS Working Papers 10-18, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    24. 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.
    25. Lata Gangadharan & Giancarlo Musto & Jean-Louis Rullière, 2013. "Win for Being the Best or for Getting the Best: Theoretical and Experimental Evidence on Tournaments with Endogenous Prizes," Post-Print halshs-00865235, HAL.
    26. 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.
    27. Harald Tauchmann, 2012. "LEEBOUNDS: Stata module for estimating Lee (2009) treatment effect bounds," Statistical Software Components S457477, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 25 Jul 2013.
    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. Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Mani, Subha & Singh, Prakarsh, 2016. "Searching for Religious Discrimination among Anganwadi Workers in India: An Experimental Investigation," IZA Discussion Papers 10048, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Singh, Prakarsh, 2015. "Performance pay and information: Reducing child undernutrition in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 141-163.
    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. Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Mani, Subha & Singh, Prakarsh, 2016. "Searching for Religious Discrimination among Anganwadi Workers in India: An Experimental Investigation," IZA Discussion Papers 10048, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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. 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.
    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 & 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).
    6. Renfu Luo & Grant Miller & Scott Rozelle & Sean Sylvia & Marcos Vera-Hernández, 2015. "Can Bureaucrats Really Be Paid Like CEOs? School Administrator Incentives for Anemia Reduction in Rural China," NBER Working Papers 21302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Singh, Prakarsh, 2011. "Performance Pay and Information: Reducing Child Malnutrition in Urban Slums," MPRA Paper 29403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. 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).
    11. 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.
    12. Ding, Hui & Chen, Yiwei & Yu, Min & Zhong, Jieming & Hu, Ruying & Chen, Xiangyu & Wang, Chunmei & Xie, Kaixu & Eggleston, Karen, 2021. "The Effects of Chronic Disease Management in Primary Health Care: Evidence from Rural China," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Iajya, Victor & Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario & Slonim, Robert, 2013. "The effects of information, social and financial incentives on voluntary undirected blood donations: Evidence from a field experiment in Argentina," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 214-223.
    14. Berlinski, Samuel & Ramos, Alejandra, 2020. "Teacher mobility and merit pay: Evidence from a voluntary public award program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    15. 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.
    16. Brock, J. Michelle & Lange, Andreas & Leonard, Kenneth L., 2018. "Giving and promising gifts: Experimental evidence on reciprocity from the field," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 188-201.
    17. Barrera-Osorio, Felipe & Raju, Dhushyanth, 2017. "Teacher performance pay: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 75-91.
    18. Olabisi, Michael & Maredia, Mywish & Liu, Jiawen & Ajibade, Toyin & Ajeigbe, Hakeem, 2024. "In-group competition for incentives," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    19. Frederico Finan & Benjamin A. Olken & Rohini Pande, 2015. "The Personnel Economics of the State," NBER Working Papers 21825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Catalina Tejada & Eliana Ferrara & Henrik Kleven & Florian Blum & Oriana Bandiera & Michel Azulai, 2015. "State Effectiveness, Growth, and Development," Working Papers id:6668, eSocialSciences.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Performance pay; Child malnutrition; Absolute and relative incentives;
    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

    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:nva:unnvaa:wp05-2015. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://ncid.unav.edu .

    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.