Local capture and the political economy of school financing

This paper describes and analyses the results of an innovative survey tool to gauge the extent to which public resources actually filter down to the intended end-user. It focuses on one of the key public programs in education in Uganda, a per student capitation grant to cover school's non-wage expenditure. The survey compared disbursed flows from central government (intended resources) with the resources actually received by 250 primary schools over a five-year period (1991-95). This unique panel data set is used to study the level and determinants of local capture.