Governance Institutions and Cooperation (Sierra Leone)

Sierra Leone is a country that faces many challenges with decentralization and provision of basicpublic goods. This makes collective action among citizens important, either to fund local publicgoods, or for citizens organizing demands to the state. As a result, local leaders are key to helppeople solve these problems. But as in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Sierra Leone has bothtraditional and democratically elected leaders co-existing. This study then aims to compare thesetwo types of leaders in terms of how they provide incentives for people to cooperate.The results of this study are important for policy makers, either governments or NGOs, thatimplement policies that involve a collective action problem. This happens in different contexts likeraising taxes, community monitoring/provision of sanitation services, or even in a public health crisiswere people need to comply with costly behavior. The project can help guide polices in this spacethat require the policy maker to engage with local leaders; particularly choosing the way to includeeither traditional or democratic leaders as a means to achieve the desired behavior of citizens.My study uses a field experiment where participants from rural communities in Sierra Leoneencounter a collective action problem embedded in a real project run by an NGO. Specifically,participants will decide to ether keep money for themselves or contribute to a community projectbenefiting many people. I randomly assign participants to a situation where either their local chief ortheir local councilor will help the NGO by incentivizing contributions from participants. I alsorandomize the technology available to leaders to promote cooperation. I focus on leaders usingmoral standards of behavior, monetary fines, reputation punishments, and targeting of participants.Thus, I disentangle when are these leaders better suited to solve collective action problem