The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda*
Abstract
This paper presents a randomized field experiment on community-based monitoring of public primary health care providers in Uganda. Through two rounds of village meetings, localized nongovernmental organizations encouraged communities to be more involved with the state of health service provision and strengthened their capacity to hold their local health providers to account for performance. A year after the intervention, treatment communities are more involved in monitoring the provider, and the health workers appear to exert higher effort to serve the community. We document large increases in utilization and improved health outcomes—reduced child mortality and increased child weight—that compare favorably to some of the more successful community-based intervention trials reported in the medical literature.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“We are aware that, besides more direct impacts such as the reduction in the level of specific forms of corruption, interventions might also have indirect effects such as improved public integrity, improved quality or quantity of specific public services (Banerjee et al., 2010; Björkman & Svensson, 2009).”
From Public sector reforms and their impact on the level of corruption: A systematic review (2021) · cites this paper as Björkman & Svensson, 2009
Citations
Cites
Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects
Kling, J. R., Liebman, J. B., & Katz, L. F. (2007) · Econometrica · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0262.2007.00733.x · Cited by 2,719
Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities
Miguel, E., & Kremer, M. (2004) · Econometrica · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0262.2004.00481.x · Cited by 2,268 · cited 1×
“Mtango and Neuvians (1986) evaluate a project in rural Tanzania in which trained village health workers visited families at their homes every six to eight weeks, giving health education on recognition and prevention of acute respiratory infections, treating children with pneumonia with antibiotics or referring them to…”
Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia
Olken, B. A. (2005) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/517935 · Cited by 1,949
The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from IndiaPreprint
Besley, T. J., & Burgess, R. (2002) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.319012 · Cited by 1,783 · cited 2×
“With few exceptions, this literature studies the relationships of accountability of politicians to citizens and deal with one (periodic elections) mechanism through which citizens can make politicians and policymakers accountable (see for instance Strömberg, 2004; Besley and Burgess, 2002; Ferraz and Finan, 2005).”
Identity and the Economics of Organizations
Akerlof, G. A., & Kranton, R. E. (2005) · The Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/0895330053147930 · Cited by 1,706 · cited 1×
“An individual worker may still put in high e¤ort if shirking deviates from her ideal choice, given the behavior of other sta¤ and the situation (Akerlof and Kranton, 2005).”
Evidence-based, cost-effective interventions: How many newborn babies can we save?
Darmstadt, G. L., Bhutta, Z. A., Cousens, S., Adam, T., Walker, N., & de Bernis, L. (2005) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(05)71088-6 · Cited by 1,541
Missing in action: teacher and health worker absence in developing countries.
Chaudhury, N., Hammer, J., Kremer, M., Muralidharan, K., & Rogers, F. H. (2006) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/089533006776526058 · Cited by 1,379 · cited 3×
“Chaudhury et al. (2006) provide systematic evidence on the rates of absenteeism based on surveys where enumerators made unannounced visits to primary schools and health clinics in seven developing countries.”
InfluentialFerraz, C., & Finan, F. (2008) · Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/qjec.2008.123.2.703 · Cited by 1,319
Local Capture: Evidence from a Central Government Transfer Program in Uganda
Reinikka, R., & Svensson, J. (2004) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1162/0033553041382120 · Cited by 1,148 · cited 2×
“…India; right to information on public works and public hearings or jan sunwais in Rajasthan, India; public information campaign to reduce capture of school funds in Uganda; and community scorecards in Malawi (see Reinikka and Svensson, 2004; World Bank, 2003; Paul, 2002; and Singh and Shah, 2002).”
Self-citationHandcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability
Besley, T. J., & Prat, A. (2006) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.96.3.720 · Cited by 1,126
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 501–527 of 527
Varieties of Participation and Investment in Local Public Goods: Evidence from an RCT in Kenya
Grillos, T., & Touchton, M. (2026) · Journal of Politics · doi:10.1086/741603
Grimm, M., Luck, N., Raya, A., & Sawhney, U. (2026) · Journal of Environmental Economics and Management · doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2026.103343
Empowering young citizens through the practice of accountability: an experiment in Bangladesh
Dixit, A., & Sulaiman, M. (2026) · Quarterly Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1108/qjps-08-2024-0121
Political accountability and bureaucratic selection
León, A., & Santos, K. (2026) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2026.105580
Hazarika, B., & Singh, A. (2025) · International Journal of Health Economics and Policy · doi:10.11648/j.hep.20251004.13
Burde, D., Middleton, J., Rahnama, R., & Samii, C. (2025) · Journal of Politics · doi:10.1086/739667
Health facility quality peer effects: Are financial incentives necessary?
McGuire, F., Santos, R., Smith, P., Stacey, N., Edoka, I., & Kreif, N. (2025) · Regional Science and Urban Economics · doi:10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104091
Untapped human capital in Africa
Leonard, K. L., & Hompashe, D. M. (2024) · International Journal of Educational Development · doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2024.103093 · Cited by 2
Prado, M. (2022) · Revista del CESLA · doi:10.36551/2081-1160.2022.29.219-242
An overview on field experiments in health in developing countries
Yepez, J. (2022) · Health, Food & Biotechnology · doi:10.36107/hfb.2021.i4.s125
Accountability and Quality of Service Delivery
Rabie, T., Towfighian, S. N., Clark, C. J., & Cammett, M. C. (2017) · World Bank, Washington, DC eBooks · doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-1069-5_ch1
Delivering Human Development Services in Natural Resource-Rich Countries
la Brière, B. L. D., Filmer, D., Ringold, D., Rohner, D., Samuda, K., & Denisova, A. (2017) · doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-1005-3_ch3
Corruption, Social Judgment and Culture: An ExperimentPreprint
Salmon, T. C., & Serra, D. (2017) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.2383903
Health Worker Labor Supply, Absenteeism, and Job Choice
Serneels, P., Lievens, T., & Butera, D. (2016) · doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0931-6_ch5
Control over Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
Klugman, J., Hanmer, L., Twigg, S., Hasan, T., McCleary-Sills, J., & Santamaria, J. (2014) · World Bank, Washington, DC eBooks · doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0359-8_ch4
Malena, C. (2022) · International Encyclopedia of Civil Society · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_9561-1
Claudio, O. J., & Mango, N. (2021) · International journal of research and innovation in social science · doi:10.47772/ijriss.2021.51135
A general framework for learning about research designs †Preprint
Blair, G., Cooper, J., Coppock, A., & Humphreys, M. (2018) · doi:10.31222/osf.io/m6ws3
Capuno, J., & Garcia, M. (2015) · doi:10.1007/978-81-322-2160-9_10
Essays on Infrastructure and Development
Tompsett, A. (2014) · doi:10.7916/d8513wcr
On the Economics of Transparency and Cooperation
Jarke-Neuert, J. (2013) · heiDOK (Heidelberg University) · doi:10.11588/heidok.00014709
Landeghem, B. V., & Cörvers, F. (2013) · doi:10.26481/umarot.2013002
Essays on the political economy of local Brazilian governments
Fujiwara, T. (2011) · cIRcle (University of British Columbia) · doi:10.14288/1.0072324
Local Accountability Improves Health Services
Svensson, J. (2010) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/8140.003.0009
Self-citationMiles, D. (n.d.) · doi:10.3362/9781780445878.004
“…research in Uganda suggest that community participation in monitoring providers can improve quality and quantity of health services as evidenced by large increases in utilization, significant weight gains for infants, and markedly lower death rates among children (Bjoerkman and Swensson 2007).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Björkman, M., & Svensson, J.
- Affiliations
- Centre for Economic Policy Research (GB)
- Center for Economic and Policy Research (US)
- ORCID
- Svensson, Jakob
- Venue
- Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-05
- Volume
- 124
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 735-769
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- OpenAlex
- W3123010330
- Cited by
- 739
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 61 · 2021: 66 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 53 · 2016: 50 · 2015: 52 · 2014: 64 · 2013: 54 · 2012: 36
- FWCI
- 26.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della Ricerca - Bocconi (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Global Maternal and Child Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Healthcare Systems and Reforms
- Social Sciences › Development › Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
- Keywords
- community-based monitoring, primary care, community participation, village meetings, non-governmental organizations, health care utilization, child mortality, child weight
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
