Using Performance Incentives to Improve Medical Care Productivity and Health Outcomes

Paul Gertler and Christel Vermeersch

No 19046, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We nested a large-scale field experiment into the national rollout of the introduction of performance pay for medical care providers in Rwanda to study the effect of incentives for health care providers. In order to identify the effect of incentives separately from higher compensation, we held constant compensation across treatment and comparison groups - a portion of the treatment group's compensation was based on performance whereas the compensation of the comparison group was fixed. The incentives led to a 20% increase in productivity, and significant improvements in child health. We also find evidence of a strong complementarity between performance incentives and baseline provider skill.

JEL-codes: I11 J33 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hea and nep-hrm
Note: CH DEV EH LS
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Published as Journal of Health Economics Volume 40, March 2015, Pages 1–9 Cover image Using provider performance incentives to increase HIV testing and counseling services in Rwanda Damien de Walquea, 1, , , Paul J. Gertlerb, 1, Sergio Bautista-Arredondoc, Ada Kwanc, Christel Vermeerschd, Jean de Dieu Bizimanae, Agnès Binagwahof, Jeanine Condog

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Working Paper: Using Performance Incentives to Improve Medical Care Productivity and Health Outcomes (2013)
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