IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pas/asarcc/2010-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Targeting Accuracy of the NREG: Evidence from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra

Author

Listed:
  • Raghav Gaiha
  • Shylashri Shankar
  • Raghbendra Jha

Abstract

Several tests of targeting accuracy of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREG) focusing on shares of participants by poverty status, their duration of participation, and earnings from it are used. The analysis is based on primary household data collected from three India states, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. In all three states, the poor depended more on the NREG than the non-poor, with the share of NREGS earnings in household income of the poor being the highest in Andhra Pradesh. Useful insights into the design and implementation of this scheme that impede the participation of the poor and render it more attractive for the (relatively) affluent are obtained from a probit analysis. A major flaw is the hike in the NREG wage relative to agricultural wage, as it undermines selfselection of the poor-especially in villages with a high degree of land inequality. In fact, two different mechanisms seem to be operating-one tends to exclude the poorest (the negative effect of the land Gini), and the other tends to promote the inclusion of the (relatively) affluent (the positive effect of the interaction of the land Gini and the ratio of NREG wage to agricultural wage). That awareness of the scheme matters is corroborated. However, the poor do not necessarily benefit as much as the non-poor at the entry point. But, with more information, corruption reduces at the implementation stage and this has the potential of serving the interests of the poor better.

Suggested Citation

  • Raghav Gaiha & Shylashri Shankar & Raghbendra Jha, 2010. "Targeting Accuracy of the NREG: Evidence from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra," ASARC Working Papers 2010-03, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    • Handle: RePEc:pas:asarcc:2010-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/acde/asarc/pdf/papers/2010/WP2010_03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raghbendra Jha & Sambit Bhattacharyya & Raghav Gaiha, 2011. "Temporal variation of capture of anti-poverty programs: rural public works and food for work programs in rural India," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 349-362.
    2. Chau, Nancy H. & Liu, Yanyan & Soundararajan, Vidhya, 2017. "Political activism as a determinant of clientelistic transfers: Evidence from an Indian public works program:," IFPRI discussion papers 1700, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Das, Upasak, 2015. "Does Political Activism and Affiliation Affect Allocation of Benefits in the Rural Employment Guarantee Program: Evidence from West Bengal, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 202-217.
    4. Chau, Nancy H. & Liu, Yanyan & Soundararajan, Vidhya, 2021. "Political activism as a determinant of strategic transfers: Evidence from an indian public works program," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Employment Guarantee; Poverty; NREG wage; Land Inequality; Awareness; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pas:asarcc:2010-03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Raghbendra Jha (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/asanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.