TY  - SER
AU  - Zimmermann, Laura V.
TI  - Why Guarantee Employment? Evidence from a Large Indian Public-Works Program
SN  - 0013-0079
PB  - Economic Development and Cultural Change
KW  -  Family Employment
KW  -  Poor Households
KW  -  Private-Sector Jobs
KW  -  Public-Works Program
KW  - Guarantee Employment
N2  - Most countries implement safety net programs for poor households. A widespread concern is that such programs crowd out private-sector jobs, but they could also affect workers' job choice. This paper analyzes the first-year employment impacts of the world's largest public-works program, India's National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (NREGS), using a novel regression-discontinuity design. It focuses on districts treated in phase 2 of the NREGS rollout, which excludes poorer districts that were already treated. The results show that there is little evidence of a crowding out of private-sector jobs. Instead, male workers move from work for pay to family employment, which is driven by smallholder farmers
UR  - https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/726251
ER  -