Scaling Up

This chapter addresses the scalability and generalizability of an intervention like the one described in Chapter 4. In the construction of public works, a lack of accountability results in corruption and inefficiency. The question, then, is whether civil society oversight that is explicitly supported by a relevant public authority with sanctioning capacity will improve accountability. Or, as is sometimes argued, does the added scrutiny demoralize and distract officials, causing undesired delays? To approach an answer, this chapter describes a field experiment that builds on a sample of two hundred district governments in Peru. Half of the districts were randomly selected to enter into a control group. The other half received letters indicating that specific public works under their charge were being monitored by a civil society organization with the support of the country’s leading anticorruption agency. The results suggest that, even as districts in the two groups completed public works at a similar rate, the intervention lowered the cost of public works in the treatment group. This is evidence that the monitoring intervention resulted in overall efficiency gains.