IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/oxdevs/v43y2015i3p361-378.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rationing and Accuracy of Targeting in India: The Case of the Rural Employment Guarantee Act

Author

Listed:
  • Upasak Das

Abstract

Rationing and its implication on accuracy of targeting of benefits to the intended beneficiaries in an anti-poverty programme is an essential component of its evaluation. Taking nationally representative data for 2009-2010 and 2011-2012, this paper evaluates the performance of the Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India in terms of targeting of benefits to the poorer households. It attempts to find if households, which did not get work after demanding are poorer than the ones, who got work and then explores, if the non-poor households got work for higher number of days under the programme in comparison to the poorer ones. Findings from the regressions, which control for the potential sample selection bias show that the poorer households in terms of monthly consumption expenditure have lesser probability of getting work in both the years, though traces of improvement in targeting is observed in 2011-2012. Poorer households are also found to be significantly associated with lower days of work in 2009-2010 compared to the relatively better-off ones. The results lay emphasis on the need to reduce rationing and generate awareness on the basic entitlements of the programme along with higher accountability and vigilance for better targeting.

Suggested Citation

  • Upasak Das, 2015. "Rationing and Accuracy of Targeting in India: The Case of the Rural Employment Guarantee Act," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 361-378, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:oxdevs:v:43:y:2015:i:3:p:361-378
    DOI: 10.1080/13600818.2015.1042445
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13600818.2015.1042445
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13600818.2015.1042445?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sergei Suarez Dillon Soares & Rafael Perez Ribas & Fabio Veras Soares, 2010. "Targeting and Coverage of the Bolsa Família Programme: Why Knowing What You Measure Is Important In Choosing the Numbers," Working Papers 71, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    2. Rajindar Sachar & Saiyid Hamid & T.K. Oommen & M.A. Basith & Rakesh Basant & Akhtar Majeed & Abusaleh Shariff, 2006. "Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India," Development Economics Working Papers 22136, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    3. Sudha Narayanan & Krushna Ranaware & Upasak Das & Ashwini Kulkarni, 2014. "MGNREGA Works and their Impact: A Rapid Assessment in Maharashtra," Working Papers id:6194, eSocialSciences.
    4. Galasso, Emanuela & Ravallion, Martin, 2000. "Distributional outcomes of a decentralized welfare program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2316, The World Bank.
    5. Khera, Reetika (ed.), 2011. "The Battle for Employment Guarantee," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198070627.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Mihir Shah, 2016. "Should India do away with the MGNREGA?," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 59(1), pages 125-153, March.
    2. Sanghmitra S Acharya & Gobinda C Pal, 2017. "Implementation of Social Protection Programmes in India : Gaps and Challenges," Southern Voice Occasional Paper 40, Southern Voice.
    3. Sheahan, Megan & Liu, Yanyan & Narayanan, Sudha & Barrett, Christopher B., 2015. "Disaggregated labor supply implications of guaranteed employment in India," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 237345, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Deininger, Klaus & Liu, Yanyan, 2019. "Heterogeneous welfare impacts of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: Evidence from Andhra Pradesh, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 98-111.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pritchett, Lant & Sumarto, Sudarno & Suryahadi, Asep, 2001. "Targeted Programs in an Economic Crisis: Empirical Findings from Indonesia’s Experience," MPRA Paper 58727, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Rinku Murgai & Martin Ravallion & Dominique van de Walle, 2016. "Is Workfare Cost-effective against Poverty in a Poor Labor-Surplus Economy?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(3), pages 413-445.
    3. Vinoj Abraham, 2018. "MGNREGS: Political Economy, Local Governance and Asset Creation in South India," India Studies in Business and Economics, in: Madhusudan Bhattarai & P.K. Viswanathan & Rudra N. Mishra & Cynthia Bantilan (ed.), Employment Guarantee Programme and Dynamics of Rural Transformation in India, chapter 0, pages 199-223, Springer.
    4. Juan M. Villa, 2016. "Social Transfers and Growth: Evidence from Luminosity Data," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(1), pages 39-61.
    5. Karthik Muralidharan & Paul Niehaus & Sandip Sukhtankar, 2016. "Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 2895-2929, October.
    6. Sudha Narayanan Narayanan & Nicolas Gerber, 2016. "Safety Nets for Food and Nutritional Security in India," FOODSECURE Working papers 37, LEI Wageningen UR.
    7. Sabina Alkire & Suman Seth, 2013. "Selecting a Targeting Method to Identify BPL Households in India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 417-446, June.
    8. World Bank, 2002. "Poverty in Bangladesh : Building on Progress," World Bank Publications - Reports 15303, The World Bank Group.
    9. Sudha Narayanan & Nicolas Gerber, 2015. "Social safety nets for food and nutritional security in India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2015-031, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    10. Rinku Murgai & Salman Zaidi, 2005. "Effectiveness of Food Assistance Programs in Bangladesh," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 21(1-2), pages 121-142, June.
    11. Nawazuddin Ahmed & Dinesh K. Nauriyal, 2023. "Occupational and Educational Mobility Among Indian Muslims: Primary Survey-Based Evidence," Millennial Asia, , vol. 14(2), pages 228-259, June.
    12. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Clément Imbert & Santhosh Mathew & Rohini Pande, 2020. "E-governance, Accountability, and Leakage in Public Programs: Experimental Evidence from a Financial Management Reform in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 39-72, October.
    13. Narayan Chandra Nayak & Bimal Kishore Sahoo & Mamata Jenamani & Alok Ranjan Mohanty & Runa Sen Chatterjee, 2021. "Does Convergence of Rural Development Schemes Improve Household Welfare? An Investigation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Odisha, India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 64(4), pages 1023-1042, December.
    14. Superti, Luiz Henrique, 2019. "Effects on Fertility of The Brazilian Cash Transfer Program: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach," MPRA Paper 104627, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2020.
    15. Afridi, Farzana & Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Sahoo, Soham, 2012. "Female Labour Force Participation and Child Education in India: The Effect of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme," IZA Discussion Papers 6593, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "The Idea of Antipoverty Policy," NBER Working Papers 19210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Jayne, Thomas S. & Strauss, John & Yamano, Takashi & Molla, Daniel, 2002. "Targeting of food aid in rural Ethiopia: chronic need or inertia?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 247-288, August.
    18. Ashok S. Rai, "undated". "Targeting the Poor Using Community Information," CID Working Papers 22, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    19. Sumarto, Sudarno & Suryahadi, Asep & Pritchett, Lant, 2003. "Safety Nets or Safety Ropes? Dynamic Benefit Incidence of Two Crisis Programs in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 1257-1277, July.
    20. Saxena, Vibhor & Bindal, Ishaan & LeMay-Boucher, Philippe, 2020. "Social groups and credit shocks: Evidence of inequalities in consumption smoothing," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 311-326.

    More about this item

    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:taf:oxdevs:v:43:y:2015:i:3:p:361-378. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CODS20 .

    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.