Journal of Public Economics · 2023 · Ghazala Mansuri、Nethra Palaniswamy、Vijayendra Rao、Slesh A. Shrestha
中文摘要
我们提供了有关绩效激励能否有效促使民选政治家改善印度一项大规模公共项目实施情况的实验证据。该研究将泰米尔纳德邦村级政府的负责人随机分配至两种激励方案之一（或对照组）：一种是财务激励，以更高的公共预算奖励绩效较好的负责人；另一种是非财务激励，向负责人颁发证明其成就的证书，并通过信息宣传活动加以传播。研究发现，两种激励均改善了该项目多个维度的绩效，包括扩大受激励负责人所在村庄对各类社会安全网和公共援助计划的可及性。非财务激励还缩小了负责人在其村庄内部配置公共资源时不同自然村之间的差异，并且与财务激励相比，其实施成本显著更低。研究结果也与不完全信息下的标准投票模型一致：提供有关政治家素质的可信信息的干预措施，有助于纠正现状中普遍存在的资源偏向性配置问题。
Abstract
We present experimental evidence on the efficacy of a performance-based incentive in motivating elected politicians to improve delivery of a large-scale public program in India. The study randomly assigned presidents of village governments in the state of Tamil Nadu to one of two incentive schemes (or a control group): a financial incentive that rewarded better performing presidents with a higher public budget, and a nonfinancial incentive that awarded them a certificate demonstrating their achievement with an information campaign to disseminate it. The findings show that both incentives improved performance on multiple program dimensions, including expanding access to various safety net and public assistance schemes in the villages of incentivized presidents. The nonfinancial incentive also reduced between–hamlet differences in public resources allocated by presidents within their village, and it was significantly less costly to implement compared to the financial incentive. The results are also in line with standard voting models with imperfect information, where interventions that provide credible information on politician quality can help redress preferential targeting of resources that are prevalent in the status quo.