IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csa/wpaper/2013-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Effects of Social Programs: Evidence from India's Employment Guarantee

Author

Listed:
  • Clément Imbert
  • John Papp

Abstract

Using the gradual roll out of a large rural workfare program in India, we estimate its e ect on private employment and wages by comparing districts that received the program earlier relative to those that received it later. Our results suggest that public sector hiring crowds out private sector work and increases private sector wages. We compute the implied welfare gains of the program by consumption quintile. Our calculations show that the welfare gains to the poor from the equilibrium increase in private sector wages are large in absolute terms and large relative to the gains received solely by program participants.

Suggested Citation

  • Clément Imbert & John Papp, 2013. "Labor Market Effects of Social Programs: Evidence from India's Employment Guarantee," CSAE Working Paper Series 2013-03, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2013-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d98d3396-5cfc-4314-a698-28f3f5401d1d
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1994. "Transfer Benefits from Public-Works Employment: Evidence for Rural India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1346-1369, November.
    2. Paul Niehaus & Sandip Sukhtankar, 2013. "Corruption Dynamics: The Golden Goose Effect," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 230-269, November.
    3. Petia Topalova, 2010. "Factor Immobility and Regional Impacts of Trade Liberalization: Evidence on Poverty from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-41, October.
    4. Thiemo Fetzer, 2014. "Can Workfare Programs Moderate Violence? Evidence from India," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 53, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    5. Basu, Arnab K. & Chau, Nancy H. & Kanbur, Ravi, 2009. "A theory of employment guarantees: Contestability, credibility and distributional concerns," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 482-497, April.
    6. Jesse M Cunha & Giacomo De Giorgi & Seema Jayachandran, 2019. "The Price Effects of Cash Versus In-Kind Transfers," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 240-281.
    7. Taryn Dinkelman, 2011. "The Effects of Rural Electrification on Employment: New Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3078-3108, December.
    8. Strauss, John, 1986. "Does Better Nutrition Raise Farm Productivity?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 297-320, April.
    9. Victoria Hosegood & Anne Case & Cally Ardington, 2009. "Labor Supply Responses to Large Social Transfers: Longitudinal Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 22-48, January.
    10. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2007. "The Economic Lives of the Poor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 141-168, Winter.
    11. S. Mahendra Dev, 2008. "India," Chapters, in: Anis Chowdhury & Wahiduddin Mahmud (ed.), Handbook on the South Asian Economies, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Manuela Angelucci & Giacomo De Giorgi, 2009. "Indirect Effects of an Aid Program: How Do Cash Transfers Affect Ineligibles' Consumption?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 486-508, March.
    13. Thiemo Fetzer, 2014. "Can Workfare Programs Moderate Violence? Evidence from India," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 053, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    14. Seema Jayachandran, 2006. "Selling Labor Low: Wage Responses to Productivity Shocks in Developing Countries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 538-575, June.
    15. Porto, Guido G., 2006. "Using survey data to assess the distributional effects of trade policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 140-160, September.
    16. Gary Solon & Steven J. Haider & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "What Are We Weighting For?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 301-316.
    17. Abhijit Banerjee & Lakshmi Iyer, 2005. "History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1190-1213, September.
    18. Martin Ravallion, 1987. "Market Responses to Anti-Hunger Policies: Effects on Wages, Prices and Employment," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1987-028, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Erlend Berg & Sambit Bhattacharyya & Rajasekhar Durgam & Manjula Ramachandra, 2012. "Can Rural Public Works Affect Agricultural Wages? Evidence from India," CSAE Working Paper Series 2012-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    20. Rosenzweig, Mark R., 1988. "Labor markets in low-income countries," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 713-762, Elsevier.
    21. World Bank, 2011. "Social Protection for a Changing India : Executive Summary," World Bank Publications - Reports 2746, The World Bank Group.
    22. Amartya K. Sen, 1966. "Peasants and Dualism with or without Surplus Labor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(5), pages 425-425.
    23. 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.
    24. Benjamin, Dwayne, 1992. "Household Composition, Labor Markets, and Labor Demand: Testing for Separation in Agricultural Household Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 287-322, March.
    25. Ravallion, Martin, 1987. "Market Responses to Anti-Hunger Policies," WIDER Working Papers 295556, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    26. Khera, Reetika (ed.), 2011. "The Battle for Employment Guarantee," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198070627.
    27. Deaton, Angus, 1989. "Rice Prices and Income Distribution in Thailand: A Non-parametric Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(395), pages 1-37, Supplemen.
    28. Arnab Basu, 2013. "Impact of rural employment guarantee schemes on seasonal labor markets: optimum compensation and workers’ welfare," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(1), pages 1-34, March.
    29. Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1978. "Rural Wages, Labor Supply, and Land Reform: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(5), pages 847-861, December.
    30. Rodgers, G B, 1975. "Nutritionally Based Wage Determination in the Low-Income Labour Market," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(1), pages 61-81, March.
    31. Erlend Berg & Sambit Bhattacharyya & D Rajasekhar & R Manjula, 2014. "Can Public Employment Schemes Increase Equilibrium Wages? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 14/317, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    32. Mark R. Rosenzweig, 1980. "Neoclassical Theory and the Optimizing Peasant: An Econometric Analysis of Market Family Labor Supply in a Developing Country," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(1), pages 31-55.
    33. Azam, Mehtabul, 2012. "The Impact of Indian Job Guarantee Scheme on Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 6548, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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 233-63, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    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:csa:wpaper:2013-03. 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.

    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: Julia Coffey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.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.