Private Information and the Allocation of Land Use Subsidies in Malawi

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jack, B. Kelsey
• 署名单位: Tufts University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.5.3.113
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 113-135
• 关键词: environmental services; field experiment; payments; auctions; DESIGN

摘要

Efficient targeting of public programs is difficult when the cost or benefit to potential recipients is private information. This study illustrates the potential of self-selection to improve allocational outcomes in the context of a program that subsidizes tree planting in Malawi. Landholders who received a tree planting contract as a result of bidding in an auction kept significantly more trees alive over a three year period than did landholders who received the contract through a lottery. The gains from targeting on private information through the auction represent a 30 percent cost savings per surviving tree for the implementing organization. (JEL D04, D44, D82, O13, Q24, Q28)