Does Corruption Affect Health and Education Outcomes in the Philippines?

We examine the effect of corruption on health and education outcomes in the Philippines. We find that corruption reduces the immunization rates, delays the vaccination of newborns, discourages the use of public health clinics, reduces satisfaction of households with public health services, and increases waiting time at health clinics. Corruption also has a negative effect on education outcomes: it reduces test scores, lowers national ranking of schools, raises variation of test scores across schools and reduces satisfaction ratings. We also find that corruption affects public services in rural areas in different ways than urban areas, and that corruption harms the poor more than the wealthy