Health Care Workers and Informal Payments

In many developing countries, making informal payments to health care workers is common.  Lewis (2000) estimates the frequency of informal payments in selected Asian and Central/Eastern European countries as: Armenia: 91%; Azerbaijan: 78%; Kyrgyz Republic: 75% Poland: 78%; Russia: 74% Vietnam: 81%; Do these payments work?  Would people be better off if these bribes were made…