 Poverty, Bureaucratic Behaviour and Health PolicyTchétché N'Guessan Journal of African Economies, 2004, vol. 13, issue 1, i183-i198 Abstract: This paper examines the impact of a self-interested bureaucracy on health care coverage in a poor country such as Côte d'Ivoire. Even when information about cost of care is available to all parties, the paper shows that only a fraction of the sick population receives adequate treatment for recovery because of extreme poverty. When there is an agency problem regarding the cost of treatment between a government and foreign pharmaceutical laboratories, the fraction of sick patients who receive medical care is reduced. If the government uses an agent (bureaucracy) to solicit information regarding the true cost of treatment to ameliorate the agency problem but the bureaucracy can be bribed by foreign pharmaceutical laboratories or the health care provider to hide the true cost of care, the effect of designing a collusion-free contract is to further reduce the proportion of sick patients who receive medical care. This means that more people die every day in Africa as a result of bureaucratic behaviour. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press. Date: 2004 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:13:y:2004:i:1:p:i183-i198 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Journal of African Economies is currently edited by Francis Teal More articles in Journal of African Economies from Centre for the Study of African Economies Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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