Informal payments in the health sector in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are emerging as a fundamental aspect of health care financing and a serious impediment to health care reform. Informal payments are payments to individuals or institutions in cash or in kind made outside official payment...

Publicly funded and provided health care systems are typically characterized by services that are free of charge, or have nominal user fees collected. This is certainly the case for a number of Former Soviet Union countries - even now - as they struggle to modernize and diversify their health...

Informal, under-the-table, payments to public health providers is an increasingly important source of health financing in developing and transition countries. With basic funding levels and minimal accountability publicly financed and delivered care falls prey to illegal payments, which can...

What factors affect health care delivery in the developing world? Anecdotal evidence of lives cut tragically short and the loss of productivity due to avoidable diseases is an area of salient concern in global health and international development. This working paper looks at factual evidence to...