Survey tools for assessing performance in service delivery
25 June 2003
Jan Dehn, Ritva Reinikka, Jakob Svensson
It has become increasingly clear that budget allocations, when used as indicators of the supply of public services, are poor predictors of the actual quantity and quality of public services, especially in countries with poor accountability and weak institutions. At least four breaks in the chain can be distinguished between spending—meant to address efficiency and equity concerns—and its transformation into services (Devarajan and Reinikka 2002).
First, governments may spend on the wrong goods or the wrong people. A large portion of public spending on health and education is devoted to private
goods, where government spending is likely to crowd out private spending (Hammer, Nabi, and Cercone 1995). Furthermore, most studies of the incidence of public spending in health and education show that benefits accrue largely to the rich and middle-class; the share going to the poorest 20 percent is almost always less than 20 percent (Castro-Leal and others 1999). The first three chapters in this volume discuss benefit incidence analysis.
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