DHB: Decentralization and Local Public Goods: How Does Allocation of Decision-Making Authority Affect Provision?

世界上许多人口仍然无法充分获得卫生、保健和教育等服务。世界上多达20%的人口缺乏安全的饮用水和卫生设施。这项研究的目的是确定在何种条件下决策权的下放会改善获得服务的机会。该项目的重点是安全饮用水，但分析适用于所有服务，更广泛地适用于其他类型的组织。权力下放及其好处一直是学术和政策文献中的热门话题。世界银行建议，社区应参与所有旨在帮助他们的项目，包括提供服务。然而，关于社区参与效果的证据主要是传闻，记录好坏参半。现有的文献没有提供一个分类的条件下，权力下放改善成果和数据记录权力下放在实践中的影响是scarved.This项目确定哪些决定应该委托给社区在什么条件下，以最大限度地提高社会福利。这项研究是基于这样的想法，即社会动态决定何时授权是可取的。理论分析模型的社区特征，如财富分配，社交网络和社区规模，对消费和提供服务的个人，即社区成员和服务机构的决策的影响。这些决定反过来又决定了获得服务和社会福利的机会。社会动力学对组织结构的影响尚未在分权文献中正式建模，这项研究推进了建模技术。研究人员还将进行组织实验，收集原始数据，以测试和完善理论。他们将与孟加拉国的私营非营利组织合作，那里的地下水受到不安全的砷污染。非政府组织正在努力提供安全饮用水。该小组将随机分配三种类型的干预措施，这些干预措施与理论模型中研究的授权类型相对应，以帮助村庄提供安全用水。他们将收集家庭层面的数据，以记录这些村庄和未采取干预措施的对照组村庄的成果。该实验将使研究人员能够观察干预措施引起的村庄结果之间的差异。这些非政府组织将运用这些经验教训来减少砷危机的影响，砷危机正在影响着4000万人的生活。研究小组将广泛传播研究结果，以帮助改善其他地方组织获得服务的机会和业绩。

Access to services such as sanitation, health care and education remains inadequate for much of the world's population. As much as 20 percent of the world's population lack safe drinking water and sanitation. The objective of this study is to determine under what conditions decentralization of decision-making authority improves access to services. The project focuses on safe drinking water, though the analysis applies to all services and more broadly to other types of organizations. Decentralization and its benefits have been popular topics in academic and policy literatures. The World Bank advises that communities should be involved in all projects designed to assist them, including the provision of services. Evidence regarding the effect of community participation, however, is mainly anecdotal and the record is mixed. Existing literature does not provide a categorization of conditions under which decentralization improves outcomes and data documenting the impact of decentralization in practice is scant.This project identifies which decisions should be delegated to the community under what conditions in order to maximize social welfare. The study is based on the idea that social dynamics determine when delegation is desirable. The theoretical analysis models the effect of community characteristics, such as the distribution of wealth, social networks and community size, on decisions made by individuals who consume and provide services, i.e. community members and service agencies. These decisions in turn determine access to services and social welfare. The effect of social dynamics on organizational structure has not been modeled formally in the decentralization literature and the study advances modeling techniques. The researchers will also conduct an organizational experiment and collect original data in order to test and refine the theory. They will collaborate with private, non-profit organizations (NGOs) in Bangladesh, where the groundwater is contaminated with unsafe levels of arsenic. The NGOs are working to supply safe drinking water. The team will randomly assign three types of interventions, which correspond to types of delegation studied in the theoretical model, to help villages provide safe water. They will collect household-level data to document outcomes in these villages and in a control group of villages in which no intervention occurred. The experiment will allow the researchers to observe differences between village outcomes which are caused by the interventions. The NGOs will apply the lessons to reduce the impact of the arsenic crisis, which is affecting the lives of forty million people. The research team will disseminate the results widely in order to help improve access to services and the performance of organizations elsewhere.