Back to History

Fields Changed

Registration

Field Before After
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date March 01, 2020
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) 311 sub-district land offices
Was attrition correlated with treatment status? No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations 1,034,688 applications and 2,869 phone interviews
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms 155 treated sub-district land offices, 156 control sub-district land offices
Is there a restricted access data set available on request? No
Program Files No
Data Collection Completion Date December 30, 2020
Is data available for public use? No
Back to top

Papers

Field Before After
Paper Abstract Slow public service delivery and corruption are common problems in low- and middle-income countries. Can better management information systems improve delivery speed? Does improving the delivery speed reduce corruption? In a large-scale experiment with the Bangladesh Civil Service, I send monthly scorecards measuring delays in service delivery to government officials and their supervisors. The scorecards increase on-time service delivery by 11% but do not reduce bribes. Instead, the scorecards increase bribes for high-performing bureaucrats. A model where bureaucrats' reputational concerns constrain bribes can explain the results. When positive performance feedback improves bureaucrats' reputations, the constraint is relaxed, and bribes increase.
Paper Citation Mattsson, Martin, Information Systems, Service Delivery, and Corruption: Evidence from the Bangladesh Civil Service. Working Paper. (2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3986989
Paper URL https://ssrn.com/abstract=3986989
Back to top