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A theory of employment guarantees: Contestability, credibility and distributional concerns

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Author Info
Basu, Arnab K.
Chau, Nancy H.
Kanbur, Ravi

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Abstract

Both raw intuition and past experience suggest that the success of an employment guarantee scheme (EGS) in safeguarding the welfare of the poor depends both on the wage it promises, and the ease with which any worker can gain access. An EGS is thus at once a wage guarantee and a rationing device. We chart the positive and normative limits of such an EGS as an efficiency improving and poverty alleviating policy reform in a canonical labor market setting. At its core, an EGS provides an aggregate, not just EGS, employment target. Given the target, the EGS wage and access can be fine-tuned to deliver outcomes ranging from a contestable labor market to a simple universal unemployment benefit. The credibility of any such target, however, is shown to be triggered endogenously by a host of factors: the distributional concerns of the planner, private sector productivity, the prevalence of market power and the need for public works. Paradoxically, the outcome with a planner who cares only about efficiency can be less efficient than the outcome with a planner whose social welfare function also gives weight to poverty!

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Public Economics.

Volume (Year): 93 (2009)
Issue (Month): 3-4 (April)
Pages: 482-497
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Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:93:y:2009:i:3-4:p:482-497

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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578

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Related research
Keywords: Employment guarantees Employment targeting Credibility Distributional concern;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Besley, T. & Coate, S., 1989. "Workfare Vs. Welfare: Incentive Arguments For Work Requirements In Poverty Alleviation Programs," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 314, University of Warwick, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Baumol, William J & Lee, Kyu Sik, 1991. "Contestable Markets, Trade, and Development," World Bank Research Observer, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 1-17, January.
  3. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
  4. Ravallion, Martin, 1991. "Reaching the Rural Poor through Public Employment: Arguments, Evidence, and Lessons from South Asia," World Bank Research Observer, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 153-75, July.
  5. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-91, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-66, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Goto, Hideaki, 2008. "Labor Market Competitiveness and Poverty," Working Papers 51159, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management. [Downloadable!]
  2. Arnab K. Basu & Nancy H. Chau & Ravi Kanbur, 2007. "Turning a Blind Eye: Costly Enforcement, Credible Commitment and Minimum Wage Laws," IZA Discussion Papers 2998, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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