Working for God? Evaluating Service Delivery of Religious Not-for-Profit Health Care Providers in Uganda
Reinikka and Svensson exploit a unique micro-level data set on primary health care facilities in Uganda to address the question: What motivates religious not-for-profit (RNP) health care providers? The authors use two approaches to identify whether...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/05/2384817/working-god-evaluating-service-delivery-religious-not-for-profit-health-care-providers-uganda http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18183 |
| Summary: | Reinikka and Svensson exploit a unique
micro-level data set on primary health care facilities in
Uganda to address the question: What motivates religious
not-for-profit (RNP) health care providers? The authors use
two approaches to identify whether an altruistic (religious)
effect exists in the data. First, examining cross-section
variation, they show that RNP facilities hire qualified
medical staff below the market wage, are more likely to
provide propoor services and services with a public good
element, and charge lower prices for services than
for-profit facilities, although they provide a similar
(observable) quality of care. RNP and for-profit facilities
both provide better quality care than their government
counterparts, although government facilities have better
equipment. These findings are consistent with the view that
RNP facilities are driven in part by altruistic concerns and
that these preferences matter quantitatively. Second, the
authors exploit a near natural experiment in which the
government initiated a program of financial aid for the RNP
sector. They show that financial aid leads to more
laboratory testing of suspected malaria and intestinal worm
cases, and hence higher quality of service and lower prices,
but only in RNP facilities. The findings suggest that
working for God matters. |
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