Political Economy and Service Delivery

Work in progress on the political economy of service delivery studies the theory and evidence on the role of institutions, information, credibility of political promises, and social polarization in shaping political incentives to serve the poor.  Much of the variation in delivering broad public services and alleviating poverty can be attributed to the way public resources are allocated by politicians. Even in developing democratic countries, where politicians depend upon the poor for political support, public expenditures often fail to deliver basic services to the poor. In many cases political agents have incentives to misallocate public resources to either private rents or inefficient transfers that benefit a few citizens at the expense of many. The misallocation of public resources can be traced to imperfections in political markets (lack of information about service quality, lack of credibility of political promises, and polarization of voters on social and ideological grounds) that do not allow the poor to hold governments accountable for their actions. In addition to political market imperfections, institutional factors (constitutional rules, electoral regimes, and party systems) produce complex outcomes. Understanding the conditions and institutions under which political market imperfections grow or shrivel is therefore critical to empowering the poor to extract better performance from their governments.		Articles & Briefs   Democracy by Other Means? Legalizing Demand for Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World  Research Brief 2007  In Quest of Institutions that Promote Fiscal Discipline  Research Brief 2006    Do Macroeconomic Crises Affect Schooling and Child Health? Evidence from Peru  Research Brief 2005  More articles & briefs
Contents Active Projects Conferences  Related Resources  Publications	Active Projects Empowering Citizens with Information to Hold Government Accountable  Credibility of Political Promises Human Rights and Basic Services in Developing Countries Political Parties and Electoral Competition Decentralization to Locally Elected Governments	Researchers Jishnu Das Varun Gauri  Philip Keefer Stuti Khemani Vijayendra Rao

• Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Leadership in Delhi's Slums, S. Jha, V. Rao and M. Woolcock, World Development (forthcoming). (Based on Policy Research Working Paper 3694)
• Participatory Democracy in Action: Survey Evidence from Rural India, Tim Besley, Rohini Pande, and Vijayendra Rao, Journal of the European Economic Association, 2005.
• Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor, S. Khemani,  and P. Keefer, World Bank Research Observer 20 (Spring):1-27, 2005. (Based on Policy Research Working Paper 3164 )
• The Power of Information: Evidence from a Newspaper Campaign to Reduce Capture, R. Reinikka and J. Svensson, Policy Research Working Paper 3239, 2004.
• Why do the Poor Receive Poor Services? S. Khemani and P. Keefer,. Economic and Political Weekly 39(9, February): 935-43, 2004.

• Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor, S. Khemani and P. Philip Keefer, World Bank Research Observer, 20 (Spring):1-27, 2005. (Based on Policy Research Working Paper 3164 ).
• Why do the Poor Receive Poor Services? S. Khemani and P. Keefer,. Economic and Political Weekly 39(9, February): 935-43, 2004.   

Conferences

• October 27, 2006 - Social and Economic Rights: What Difference Do They Make?
  Agenda here, Webcast  here.

Findings

• Social Rights and Economics: Claims to Health Care and Education in Developing Countries,  V. Gauri, World Development 32(3): 465-477, 2004. Full text

• Boundary Institutions and HIV/AIDS Policy in Brazil and South Africa, V. Guari and E. S. Lieberman, Studies in Comparative International Development 41 (3): 47-73, 2006.

• Does Delegation of Fiscal Policy to an Independent Agency Make a Difference? Evidence from Intergovernmental Transfers in India, S. Khemani, Journal of Development Economics  82(2): 464-84, 2007.
• The Political Economy of Fiscal Equalization Transfers, forthcoming in Roy Bahl, Jorge Martinez and Robert Searle, eds., Fiscal Capacity Equalization and Intergovernmental Transfers (February 2006 draft)
• Party Politics and Fiscal Discipline in a Federation: Evidence from the States of India, Stuti Khemani, Comparative Political Studies (forthcoming). (Based on Policy Research Working Paper 3016.)
• Political Selection and The Quality of Government: Evidence from South India , T. Besley, R. Pande and V. Rao, processed, July 2005.
• Political Cycles in a Developing Economy: Effect of Elections in the Indian States, S. Khemani, Journal of Development Economics 73(1, February): 125-54, 2004.
• New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions, T. Beck, G.Clarke, A.Groff, P. Keefer, and P. Walsh, World Bank Economic Review 15(1): 165-76, 2001.
• Bureaucratic Delegation and Political Institutions: When are Independent Central Banks Irrelevent? D. Stasavage, and P. Keefer, Policy Research Working Paper  2356, 2000. 

• Symbolic Public Goods and the Coordination of Collective Action: A Comparison of Local Development in India and Indonesia, V. Rao, in Pranab Bardhan and Isha Ray, eds., The Contested Commons: Conversations Between Economists and Anthropologists, Blackwell Publishers, forthcoming.
• Local Government Accountability for Health Service Delivery in Nigeria, S. Khemani, Journal of African Economies, forthcoming 2006. 
• Tokenism Versus Agency: The Impact of Women's Reservations on Panchayats in South India, R. Ban and V. Rao, processed, March 2006.
• Decentralization and Service Delivery, S. Khemani, Junaid Ahmad, Shantayanan Devarajan, and Shekhar Shah, in Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio, eds., Handbook of Fiscal Federalism, Edward Elgar Publishers, 2006. (Based on Policy Research Working Paper 3603 .) 
• The Politics of Public Good Provision: Evidence From Indian Local Governments, T. Besley, R. Pande, L. Rahman, and V. Rao, Journal of the European Economic Association, April-May, 2004.
• Community Based (and Driven) Development: A Critical Review, G. Mansuri and V. Rao, The World Bank Research Observer 19(1): 1-39, 2004.
• Decentralization and Accountability: Are Voters more Vigilant in Local than in National Elections? S. Khemani, Policy Research Working Paper 2557, 2001.  

A list of publications (by year) for this unit is available here.

Policy Research Working Papers on Health
(Please use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view  PDF files)
The following policy research working papers are drawn from the World Bank's institutional archives. Each link opens a page with an abstract of the document and several download options.