million records in its archives, and that these are all stacked in a small basement, vital records are often lost. Yet, what it is not clear is the extent to which the issue of missing vital records affects applicants randomly or is the result of a shortcoming incurred by police officers systematically. Another practice, which is believed to be quite common among police officers, is the provision of different service quality to applicants based on their observable characteristics. Police officers might not be very helpful with applicants from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds or might not call their names on a first-come first-served basis but rather at their own discretion. In practice, the prevalence of administrative shortcomings, and more generally the possibility of exercising discretion at completing some of the renewal steps, often leads to police officers being willing to accept, or implicitly asking for, extra-legal payments in order to bend some of the rules and expedite the process (United Nations Development Program,, 2006).<sup>4</sup> All the red tape present within this process is further exacerbated by the lack of information on the steps that should be followed to renew an ID card, the overcrowding of applicants, and the poor signage at the Identification Unit.

# **3 Two unique natural experiments**

Since 2006, the Police started a large effort to digitize vital records of citizens across the country. This effort was aimed both at improving the provision of ID cards to citizens and curbing electoral fraud and corruption. By the time this study took place, vital records of all citizens in the city of La Paz had been digitized, and put into a vital records dataset. This newly created dataset called for a full transformation of the renewal process. As part of this transformation process, the Identification Unit introduced a new digital renewal process, which consisted of accessing the vital records of the applicants online using a computer, filling the applicants’ information online, getting the photograph taken using a digital camera connected to that computer, and getting the ID card printed out in a laser printer. That is, the digital process allowed for all of the renewal steps to be performed at the renewal table, except for the payment of the application fee. This was in sharp contrast to the old manual renewal process, which required the applicant to get his photograph taken out at a different building and pick-up his photograph at a developing film office, which was also located at a different building within the Unit. At the end of the day, however, ID cards issued under the manual and digital process were identical except for the fact that the digital ones were issued following the digital renewal process.

For a short period of time, the downtown Identification Unit in the city of La Paz was simultaneously following both the manual and digital renewal process. This existence of this dual renewal system was the result of budget constraints, which did not allow the Police to introduce the new technology in all of the 41 renewal tables at the Unit simultaneously. To avoid complaints, the Police decided to randomly assign both police officers and applicants to each one of these two renewal processes. On the one hand, police officers were randomly assigned to either one of the processes by lottery at the beginning of the transition period and remained at the same table throughout their time at the Identification Unit. On the other hand,

> 4Extra-legal payments are usually on the order of 2 to 10 USD per ID card. This is a significant amount in Bolivia considering that the minimum monthly wage is around 92 USD, and that the median monthly wage is around 363 USD (UDAPE, 2009).

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