Social Rights and Economics : Claims to Health Care and Education in Developing Countries

Gauri, Varun

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESS TO INFORMATION;    BASIC EDUCATION;    BUDGET ALLOCATIONS;    BUDGET FORMULATION;    CIVIL SOCIETY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3006
RP-ID  :  WPS3006

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The author analyzes contemporaryrights-based and economic approaches to health care andeducation in developing countries. He assesses thefoundations and uses of social rights in development,outlines an economic approach to improving health andeducation services, and then highlights the differences,similarities, and the hard questions that the economiccritique poses for rights. The author argues that the policyconsequences of rights overlap considerably with a moderneconomic approach. Both the rights-based and the economicapproaches are skeptical that electoral politics and defacto market rules provide sufficient accountability for theeffective and equitable provision of health and educationservices, and that further intrasectoral reforms ingovernance, particularly those that strengthen the hand ofservice recipients, are needed. There remain differencesbetween the two approaches. Whether procedures for servicedelivery are ends in themselves, the degree ofdisaggregation at which outcomes should be assessed, theconsequences of long-term deprivation, metrics used formaking tradeoffs, and the behavioral distortions that resultfrom subsidies are all areas where the approaches diverge.Even here, however, the differences are not irreconcilable,and advocates of the approaches need not regard each otheras antagonists.