Lessons from Randomized Evaluations in Education and Health

Alaka Holla and Michael Kremer
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Alaka Holla: Innovations for Poverty Action

No 158, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: This paper surveys evidence from recent randomized evaluations in developing countries on the impact of price on access to health and education. The debate on user fees has been contentious, but until recently much of the evidence was anecdotal. Randomized evaluations across a variety of settings suggest prices have a large impact on take-up of education and health products and services. While the sign of this effect is consistent with standard theories of human capital investment, a more detailed examination of the data suggests that it may be important to go beyond these models. There is some evidence for peer effects, which implies that for some goods the aggregate response to price will exceed the individual response. Time-inconsistent preferences could potentially help explain the apparently disproportionate effect of small short-run costs and benefits on decisions with long-run consequences.

Keywords: health; education; human capital investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2009-01-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:158

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