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A Tale of Two Programs: Assessing Treatment and Control in NREGA Studies

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  • Girish Bahal

Abstract

This article revisits impact evaluation studies on the largest public workfare in the world, NREGA. In an environment where randomization is not feasible, I show why an impact evaluation exercise on NREGA should acknowledge the existence of an older program, SGRY. Using novel district-level expenditure data on SGRY, this article shows how ignoring the older program is likely to underestimate the general equilibrium impact of the employment policy on various relevant socioeconomic outcomes. In most cases, ignoring SGRY underestimates NREGA’s impact by 30–40 percent.

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  • Girish Bahal, 2022. "A Tale of Two Programs: Assessing Treatment and Control in NREGA Studies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 36(2), pages 514-532.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:36:y:2022:i:2:p:514-532.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhab019
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    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    2. Emily Oster, 2019. "Unobservable Selection and Coefficient Stability: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 187-204, April.
    3. Clément Imbert & John Papp, 2015. "Labor Market Effects of Social Programs: Evidence from India's Employment Guarantee," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 233-263, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. Girish Bahal & Anand Shrivastava, 2022. "Fiscal transfers and inflation: evidence from India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 1837-1858, October.
    2. Sudha Narayanan & Karthikeya Naraparaju & Nicolas Gerber, 2023. "An assessment of India's multiple national social protection schemes in improving nutrition and health," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(5), pages 1215-1229, October.

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