Quality and Accountability in Health Care Delivery: Audit-Study Evidence from Primary Care in India

Jishnu Das, Alaka Holla, Aakash Mohpal and Karthik Muralidharan

American Economic Review, 2016, vol. 106, issue 12, 3765-99

Abstract: We present unique audit-study evidence on health care quality in rural India, and find that most private providers lacked medical qualifications, but completed more checklist items than public providers and recommended correct treatments equally often. Among doctors with public and private practices, all quality metrics were higher in their private clinics. Market prices are positively correlated with checklist completion and correct treatment, but also with unnecessary treatments. However, public sector salaries are uncorrelated with quality. A simple model helps interpret our findings: Where public-sector effort is low, the benefits of higher diagnostic effort among private providers may outweigh costs of potential overtreatment.

JEL-codes: H42 I11 I18 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20151138
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (94)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20151138 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... 227MAVb5U_GMuy5-QCGZ (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... 7eIn-4V4elleAcPiThnf (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... Y8oM-LATtehmH1FIepKx (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Quality and Accountability in Healthcare Delivery: Audit-Study Evidence from Primary Care in India (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:106:y:2016:i:12:p:3765-99

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().