Bribery in health care in Peru and Uganda
By: Jennifer Hunt.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 13034.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13034.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 21
Subjects: Bribery -- Peru; Bribery -- Uganda; Medical care -- Corrupt practices -- Peru; Medical care -- Corrupt practices -- Uganda; Public health -- Corrupt practices -- Peru; Public health -- Corrupt practices -- Uganda
Description: In this paper, I examine the role of household income in determining who bribes and how much they bribe in health care in Peru and Uganda. I find that rich patients are more likely than other patients to bribe in public health care: doubling household consumption increases the bribery probability by 0.2-0.4 percentage points in Peru, compared to a bribery rate of 0.8%; doubling household expenditure in Uganda increases the bribery probability by 1.2 percentage points compared to a bribery rate of 17%. The income elasticity of the bribe amount cannot be precisely estimated in Peru, but is about 0.37 in Uganda. Bribes in the Ugandan public sector appear to be fees-for-service extorted from the richer patients amongst those exempted by government policy from paying the official fees. Bribes in the private sector appear to be flat-rate fees paid by patients who do not pay official fees. I do not find evidence that the public health care sector in either Peru or Uganda is able to price-discriminate less effectively than public institutions with less competition from the private sector.
Notes: "April 2007"

Includes bibliographical references (p. 17-19).

Also available in PDF from the NBER World Wide Web site (www.nber.org).