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Direct income transfers and public good provisioning: choosing between two anti-poverty schemes

Author

Listed:
  • Diganta Mukherjee

    (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India)

  • Sreenivasan Subramanian

    (ICSSR National Fellow, affiliated to Madras Institute of Development Studies)

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the economics of choosing between two types of anti-poverty programme: targeted direct income transfers and the universal provisioning of a public good. We construct a simple analytical model to examine the issue. As might be expected, our results suggest that the choice between the two poverty-alleviation schemes would depend on the relative strengths of the productivity of public goods investment on the one hand, and the information costs of targeting benefits, on the other.

Suggested Citation

  • Diganta Mukherjee & Sreenivasan Subramanian, 2015. "Direct income transfers and public good provisioning: choosing between two anti-poverty schemes," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(3), pages 1450-1458.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00350
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ravallion, Martin, 1990. "On the coverage of public employment schemes for poverty alleviation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1-2), pages 57-79, November.
    2. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1992. "Workfare versus Welfare Incentive Arguments for Work Requirements in Poverty-Alleviation Programs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 249-261, March.
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

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