Abstract: Indonesia’s posyandus are an excellent example of important local quasi-public goods (health care) produced largely by volunteers, but with crucial inputs from government and other formal sector providers. This paper identifies the circumstances under which the formal sector’s inputs are especially successful in inducing voluntary activities that contribute to both the quantity and quality of the care provided. Data from three rounds of Indonesia’s Family Life Survey (IFLS) are used to estimate the causal effect of formal sector interventions on the quantity and quality of the healthcare provided by the informal sector. The model includes posyandu and community level fixed effects so that the effect of the intervention is identified using only longitudinal variation in the extent of interventions.

Keywords: informal sector, voluntary activities, health care, panel data, Indonesia,