Three Essays in Empirical and Experimental Development Economics: Pro-social Behavior, Monitoring of Development-Linked Public Goods and Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa

The dissertation contributes to three important issues in development economics, i.e. corruption behavior, the monitoring of development-linked public goods and inequality. The dissertation uniquely combines both empirical and experimental methods. Chapter 1 examines corruption (anti-social behavior) across Sub-Saharan Africa. In this chapter, we consider the micro-economic determinants of corruption behavior and provides implications for institutions. In addition, the 2004 World Development Report emphasizes putting poor people at the center of monitoring of development-oriented programs in developing countries. Chapter 2 and 3 evaluates the provision of development-linked public goods in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the impact of monitoring on the sustainability of these public goods. The chapters provides implications also for inequality. Based on weekly visits to health facilities in India, Banerjee, Deaton, and Duflo (2004) find no significant impact of monitoring on the attendance of community nurses. The dissertation contributes to the literature on monitoring public goods in developing countries using field experiments, by observing that, in retrospect, the small effect of monitoring on outcomes maybe due to certain characteristics of the monitors or certain characteristics of monitors make them more effective. Thus, chapters 2 and 3 examines the impact of social characteristics of monitors and the types of sanctioning institution on the provision and maintenance of public goods in developing countries using field experiments in Ghana. The first chapter ‘Revisiting the role of gender, education and situational effects in corruption behavior’ uses a unique data set on corruption in sub-Saharan Africa to re-examine the notion that females are less likely to associate with corruption compared to men. Using a representative sample of over 24,000 adults across Africa with the data allowing for controlling for differences in bribe-exposure, we show that not only are women less involved in anti-social behavior such as corruption, but in addition the gender effect holds even when basic needs such as water and sanitation services that benefits the household are at stake. The results also shows that the gender difference is robust to controlling for other personal characteristics and country fixed effects. However, we find that basic needs do narrow the magnitude of the gender differences in corruption. The educational gaps are observed not to be robust. The chapter underscores the role of women in helping to reduce corruption, but also the need for stronger institutions as individuals’ pro-social motivations may be malleable. The chapter also shows that women in relative terms are more willing to give gifts or pay bribes (do a favor) that benefits the household. Chapter 2 titled ‘The Weaker sex? Gender differences in punishment across Matrilineal and Patriachal Societies’ uses field experiments in Ghana to assess the impact of monitors’ gender on public goods provision and monitoring outcomes. In this regard, we also examine whether the cultural environment in which women live impacts such public goods monitoring outcomes. In a sense, the chapter traces the underlying origin of such gender differences, if any, by examining the role of historical differences in access to resources across matrilineal and patriarchal societies in Ghana. Our analysis shows that women monitors in the patriarchal communities are less effective using enforcement institutions, while in the matrilineal communities, women monitors are observed to be as effective as the men. The data however shows that women and men in the patriarchal communities show similar sanctioning or enforcement behaviors. The essay concludes that, the lower effectiveness of women in monitoring or fostering collective action may be driven by factors that are external to the woman, like the culture or general social perception. Lastly, the third chapter ‘Are the elder more effective implementing punishment? Experimental evidence from urban Ghana’, assesses the impact of general social status of monitors on public goods provision in developing countries. This chapter therefore extends the work in chapter 2 by examining the role of other social characteristics of monitors on public goods outcomes. Existing research shows that in a number of societies, people mandate respect to the old. We examine whether the provision and monitoring of public goods in developing countries are impacted by the age status of individuals placed in-charge of monitoring. We observe that, the elderly are more effective as monitors compared to the young. The elderly effect is observed to be much stronger in smaller communities. Overall, the results demonstrates the importance of social considerations in monitoring public goods in developing countries. Thus, in inducing cooperation in the field and sustaining public goods in developing countries, the chapter argues that policy makers must understand the social norm that permeates the society in question. The chapter contributes to the literature on monitoring of development-oriented public goods.