Information Systems, Service Delivery, and Corruption: Evidence from the Bangladesh Civil Service

Martin Mattsson

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2025, vol. 17, issue 3, 414-45

Abstract: Slow public service delivery and corruption are common problems in low- and middle-income countries. Can better management information systems improve delivery speed? Does improving the delivery speed reduce corruption? In a large-scale experiment with the Bangladesh Civil Service, I send monthly scorecards measuring delays in service delivery to government officials and their supervisors. The scorecards increase on-time service delivery by 11 percent but do not reduce bribes. Instead, the scorecards increase bribes for high-performing bureaucrats. A model where bureaucrats' reputational concerns constrain bribes can explain the results. When positive performance feedback improves bureaucrats' reputations, the constraint is relaxed, and bribes increase.

JEL-codes: D73 D83 H83 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20230672 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E208342V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/23411 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/23412 (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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:aejapp:v:17:y:2025:i:3:p:414-45

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

DOI: 10.1257/app.20230672

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

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