Improving Last-Mile Service Delivery Using Phone-Based Monitoring

Karthik Muralidharan · Paul Niehaus · Sandip Sukhtankar · Jeffrey Weaver

51 citations0/0 files storedAmerican Economic Journal Applied Economics

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Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare E-Government and Public Services Public Administration in Developing Nations

Abstract

Improving “ last-mile” public service delivery is a recurring challenge in developing countries. Could the widespread adoption of mobile phones provide a scalable, cost-effective means for improvement? We use a large-scale experiment to evaluate the impact of phone-based monitoring on a program that transferred nearly a billion dollars to 5.7 million Indian farmers. In randomly selected jurisdictions, officials were informed that program implementation would be measured via calls with beneficiaries. This led to a 7.8 percent reduction in the number of farmers who did not receive their transfers. The program was highly cost-effective, costing 3.6 cents for each additional dollar delivered. (JEL O13, O33, Q12, Q18)

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2017Economic and Political Weekly 2007Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries 2010Why Do Management Practices Differ across Firms and Countries?2007Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia 2014Measuring the Impacts of Teachers I: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates 2012Incentives Work: Getting Teachers to Come to School 2009Active and Passive Waste in Government Spending: Evidence from a Policy Experiment 2016Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India

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