Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem
Addressing public health externalities often requires community-level collective action. Due to social norms, each person’s sanitation investment decisions may depend on the decisions of neighbors. We report on a cluster randomized controlled trial conducted with 19,000 households in rural Banglades...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | Inglés |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/139964 |
| _version_ | 1855514976319438848 |
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| author | Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab Guiteras, Raymond Levinsohn, James Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq |
| author_browse | Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab Guiteras, Raymond Levinsohn, James Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq |
| author_facet | Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab Guiteras, Raymond Levinsohn, James Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq |
| author_sort | Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Addressing public health externalities often requires community-level collective action. Due to social norms, each person’s sanitation investment decisions may depend on the decisions of neighbors. We report on a cluster randomized controlled trial conducted with 19,000 households in rural Bangladesh where we grouped neighboring households and introduced (either financial or social recognition) rewards with a joint liability component for the group, or asked each group member to make a private or public pledge to maintain a hygienic latrine. The group financial reward has the strongest impact in the short term (3 months), inducing a 7.5–12.5 percentage point increase in hygienic latrine ownership, but this effect dissipates in the medium term (15 months). In contrast, the public commitment induced a 4.2–6.3 percentage point increase in hygienic latrine ownership in the short term, but this effect persists in the medium term. Non-financial social recognition or a private pledge has no detectable effect on sanitation investments. |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | CGSpace139964 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publishDateRange | 2023 |
| publishDateSort | 2023 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| publisherStr | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1399642025-10-26T13:02:00Z Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab Guiteras, Raymond Levinsohn, James Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq collective action investment hygiene decision making social norms public health finance Addressing public health externalities often requires community-level collective action. Due to social norms, each person’s sanitation investment decisions may depend on the decisions of neighbors. We report on a cluster randomized controlled trial conducted with 19,000 households in rural Bangladesh where we grouped neighboring households and introduced (either financial or social recognition) rewards with a joint liability component for the group, or asked each group member to make a private or public pledge to maintain a hygienic latrine. The group financial reward has the strongest impact in the short term (3 months), inducing a 7.5–12.5 percentage point increase in hygienic latrine ownership, but this effect dissipates in the medium term (15 months). In contrast, the public commitment induced a 4.2–6.3 percentage point increase in hygienic latrine ownership in the short term, but this effect persists in the medium term. Non-financial social recognition or a private pledge has no detectable effect on sanitation investments. 2023-05 2024-03-14T12:08:46Z 2024-03-14T12:08:46Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/139964 en Open Access Elsevier Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Guiteras, Raymond; Levinsohn, James; and Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq. 2023. Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem. Journal of Development Economics 162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103072 |
| spellingShingle | collective action investment hygiene decision making social norms public health finance Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab Guiteras, Raymond Levinsohn, James Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem |
| title | Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem |
| title_full | Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem |
| title_fullStr | Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem |
| title_full_unstemmed | Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem |
| title_short | Social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem |
| title_sort | social and financial incentives for overcoming a collective action problem |
| topic | collective action investment hygiene decision making social norms public health finance |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/139964 |
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