Are You Satisfied? Citizen Feedback and Delivery of Urban Services

Deichmann, Uwe ; Lall, Somik V.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: URBAN SERVICES;    SERVICE DELIVERY;    PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY;    HOUSEHOLDS;    SURVEYS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3070
RP-ID  :  WPS3070

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Citizen feedback is considered aneffective means for improving the performance of publicutilities. But how well does such information reflect theactual quality of service delivery? Do so-called scorecardsor report cards measure public service delivery accurately,or do personal and community characteristics have asignificant impact on residents' assessment of servicequality? Deichmann and Lall investigate these questionsusing newly available household survey data on access to andsatisfaction with selected public services in two Indiancities-Bangalore and Jaipur. They develop a framework whereactual levels of services received, as well as expectationsabout service performance, influence a household'ssatisfaction with service delivery. The authors find thatsatisfaction increases with improvements in thehousehold's own service status, a finding that supportsthe use of scorecard initiatives. But the results alsosuggest that a household's satisfaction is influencedby how service quality compares with that of its neighborsor peers and by household level characteristics such aswelfare and tenure status. This implies that responses insatisfaction surveys are at least in part determined byfactors that are unrelated to the service performanceexperienced by the household.