Why Guarantee Employment? Evidence from a Large Indian Public-Works Program
نویسندگان
چکیده
Public-works programs in developing countries have recently attracted a lot of attention as anti-poverty initiatives. This paper analyzes the labor-market impacts of the largest public-works program in the world, the Indian NREGS, using information about its rollout in a regression-discontinuity design. The results suggest that the overall employment and casual wage impacts are small, although men move out of the private casual sector and into family employment. Program take-up is higher after bad rainfall shocks, however. These empirical patterns are consistent with NREGS functioning as a safety net, but not with the program providing a general alternative form of employment. JEL: H53, I38, J22, J23, J38
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Labor Market Impacts of a Large-Scale Public Works Program: Evidence from the Indian Employment Guarantee Scheme
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