Governance and Public Service Delivery in Europe and Central Asia : Unofficial Payments, Utilization and Satisfaction

Using data from the 2010 Life in Transition Survey, this paper examines the levels of citizens' satisfaction with public service delivery in Europe and Central Asia and identifies some factors that may help explain variation in utilization and levels of satisfaction with service delivery. It finds satisfaction with public service delivery in Europe and Central Asia to be relatively high, and, despite the adverse economic and social impact of the recent global economic crisis, to have risen since 2006 in most countries in the region. However, the level of satisfaction with public service delivery in Eastern European and Central Asian countries in 2010 remains lower than in Western European comparator countries. Although the Life in Transition Survey does not provide specific objective measures of service delivery quality and efficiency, the data provide three important clues that may help explain why satisfaction is lower in transition countries than in western comparators: (i) relatively higher utilization of public services in Eastern European and Central Asian countries, (ii) relatively higher reported prevalence of unofficial payments, and (iii) relatively underdeveloped mechanisms for grievance redress.