Performance-Based Financing, Motivation and Final Output in the Health Sector: Experimental Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Elise Huillery (1) , Juliette Seban (2)

1 ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po)
2 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne

Performance-based financing becomes a common strategy to improve health sector quality. The findings of this paper imply that performance-based financing should take motivational effects and levels of provider capacity into account. Using a field experiment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we find that financial incentives led to more effort from health workers on rewarded activities, without deterring effort on non-rewarded activities. We also find a shift from intrinsic to extrinsic motivation. Finally, the increased effort by health workers proved unsuccessful and led to a reduction in revenue, suggesting that health workers lacked the capacity to develop appropriate strategies to perform.

Domains: Economics and Finance

Elise Huillery, Juliette Seban. Performance-Based Financing, Motivation and Final Output in the Health Sector: Experimental Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo. 2014. ⟨hal-01071880⟩