Selection, Performance of Health Workers and State Legitimacy

卫生工作者的选拔、绩效和国家合法性

• 批准号: 509527065
• 负责人: Dr. Dietmar Fehr
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Abteilung für Mikroökonomik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/509527065?language=en
• 关键词: Selection; Performance; Health; Workers; State

The lack of state capacity is a critical impediment for economic development in many low-income countries. This often culminates in an inability to provide basic public services, which in turn contributes to a further reduction of the legitimacy of the state. In the proposed research project, we look at a major determinant of public service quality and state capacity: the quality of public employees. While better selection of employees by the state can have direct and large effects on the quality of public services and subsequently on state legitimacy, the job application process in developing countries can be prohibitively costly preventing talented workers to select into the applicant pool. The aim of the planned project is to study whether lowering search frictions improve the selection of public employees and public service provision and subsequently increase state legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. The focus will be on two important components of search frictions that are particularly prevalent in a development context: barriers on information about job opportunities and application costs. Our study context is the provision of public health services in rural Pakistan. This context is well suited for our purposes because the services are performed by community health workers who directly determine the quality of the services they provide and whose performance can be objectively measured. We will run a field study in 200 randomly selected communities, including a baseline survey of the universe of eligible applicants and a randomized controlled trial that varies the different components of search frictions we focus on. Therefore, our setup will allow us (i) to directly identify the impact of search frictions on the selection of community health workers and subsequent public service quality and (ii) to identify their impact on state legitimacy through better service quality, within a single framework. In addition, this framework will allow us to provide a detailed account of self-selection into the applicant pool based on the baseline survey data and to scrutinize the role of the screening process for service quality.The findings of this project are of high relevance as understanding selection of public employees is crucial for improving public sector governance. Moreover, the current pandemic has highlighted the importance of an efficient health system. Strengthening the ability to deliver better public health services is essential for successfully dealing with potentially more frequently recurring pandemics and other health emergencies.

缺乏国家能力是许多低收入国家经济发展的严重障碍。这往往导致无法提供基本公共服务，进而进一步削弱国家的合法性。在拟议的研究项目中，我们着眼于公共服务质量和国家能力的一个主要决定因素：公务员的素质。虽然国家更好地选择雇员可以对公共服务的质量产生直接和巨大的影响，从而对国家的合法性产生影响，但发展中国家的工作申请程序可能费用高昂，使有才能的工人无法进入申请人库。计划中的项目的目的是研究减少搜索摩擦是否会改善公务员的选择和公共服务的提供，从而提高国家在公民眼中的合法性。重点将放在发展背景下特别普遍的两个重要的搜索摩擦因素上：关于工作机会和申请费用的信息障碍。我们的研究背景是在巴基斯坦农村提供公共卫生服务。这种情况非常适合我们的目的，因为服务是由社区卫生工作者提供的，他们直接决定他们提供的服务的质量，他们的业绩可以客观地衡量。我们将在200个随机选择的社区进行实地研究，包括对符合条件的申请人的基线调查和随机对照试验，这些试验改变了我们关注的搜索摩擦的不同组成部分。我们的设置将使我们能够（i）直接确定搜索摩擦对社区卫生工作者选择和随后的公共服务质量的影响，以及（ii）在单一框架内，通过提高服务质量，确定其对国家合法性的影响。此外，该框架将使我们能够根据基线调查数据详细说明申请人库的自我选择，并仔细检查筛选过程对服务质量的作用。该项目的结果具有高度相关性，因为了解公职人员的选择对于改善公共部门治理至关重要。此外，目前的流行病突出表明了高效卫生系统的重要性。加强提供更好公共卫生服务的能力，对于成功应对可能更频繁发生的大流行病和其他卫生紧急情况至关重要。