Do Informed Citizens Receive More…or Pay More? The Impact of Radio on the Government Distribution of Public Health Benefits
The government provision of free or subsidized bed nets to combat malaria in Benin allows the identification of new channels through which mass media affect public policy outcomes. Prior research has concluded that governments provide greater priva...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20120118101613 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3236 |
| Summary: | The government provision of free or
subsidized bed nets to combat malaria in Benin allows the
identification of new channels through which mass media
affect public policy outcomes. Prior research has concluded
that governments provide greater private benefits to
better-informed individuals. This paper shows, for the first
time, that governments can also respond by exploiting
informed individuals' greater willingness to pay for
these benefits. Using a "natural experiment" in
radio markets in northern Benin, the paper finds that media
access increases the likelihood that households pay for the
bed nets they receive from government, rather than getting
them for free. Households more exposed to radio programming
on the benefits of bed nets and the hazards of malaria place
a higher value on bed nets. Local government officials
exercise significant discretion over bed net pricing and
respond to higher demand by selling bed nets that they could
have distributed for free. Mass media appears to change the
private behavior of citizens -- in this case, to invest more
of their own resources on a public health good (bed nets) --
but not their ability to extract greater benefits from government. |
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