While government spending on pro-poor community asset creation and income-transfers could have compounding positive effects on poverty reduction, it is important to first study trends in the allocation of funds, particularly as they relate to the susceptibility of the program to political clientelism. This paper uses expenditure data at the local level in Andhra Pradesh from India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a rights-based program distributing both public and private goods, to investigate the relationship between voting outcomes and program intensity in the seven years straddling a major election. By focusing on one state where accountability and transparency mechanisms have been employed and implementation efforts have been applauded, the authors do not find evidence of blatant vote buying before the 2009 election but do find that patronage played a small part in fund distribution after the 2009 election. Indeed most variation in expenditures is explained by the observed needs of potential beneficiaries, as the scheme intended.

This paper uses a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Triple difference estimates suggest that participants significantly increase consumption (protein and energy intake) in the short run and accumulate more nonfinancial assets in the medium term. Direct benefits exceed program-related transfers and are most pronounced for scheduled castes and tribes and households supplying casual labor. Asset creation via program-induced land improvements is consistent with a medium-term increase in assets by nonparticipants and increases in wage income in excess of program cost.

Despite the rise of targeted input subsidy programs in Africa over the last decade, several questions remain as to whether low and variable soil fertility, frequent drought, and high fertilizer prices render fertilizer unprofitable for large subpopulations of African farmers. To examine these questions, we use large-scale, panel experimental data from maize field trials throughout Malawi to estimate the expected physical returns to fertilizer use conditional on a range of agronomic factors and weather conditions. Using these estimated returns and historical price and weather data, we simulate the expected profitability of fertilizer application over space and time. We find that the fertilizer bundles distributed under Malawi’s subsidy program are almost always profitable in expectation, although our results may be reasonably interpreted as upper-bound estimates among more skilled farmers given that the experimental subjects were not randomly selected.

To better inform donor support for public food safety interventions, this paper reviews the literature on the impact of more stringent food safety standards on developing-country markets. This literature has primarily focused on the market access and economic implications of higher standards in export markets rather than on the extensive debate around market failure and public health benefits that dominates the literature in developed countries. We find that the market access benefits from compliance with public and private food safety standards are clear, as is the market exclusion that results from noncompliance. These benefits are now well documented, with more recent evidence pointing to added benefits of poverty reduction and spillovers for health and productivity. Rigorous evidence is also found concerning the positive role of technical assistance and public or donor support. Most of the literature, however, has focused on the relatively small market for EU horticultural products, which will provide opportunities for only a fraction of developing-country producers. This narrow focus causes important gaps in the literature informing meaningful public roles in addressing food safety in developing countries. Future research should examine and rigorously evaluate alternative models for how best to support improved food safety management outside of the export channels that have been the focus of the literature thus far. Further, evaluating the impact of public–private approaches on reduction in enforcement costs and improving compliance through supporting industry-led efforts would better inform donor support for food safety reforms, as would research among developing-country consumers with respect to food safety reforms and public health.

This report is a component of the Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS)–-funded project “Impacts of Climate Extremes on Future Water and Food Security in South Asia and East Africa.” The goal of the project was to characterize extreme drought events, to improve on a methodology to assess the probability of these events in the future under climate change, to illustrate their impacts, and to provide suggestions on coping strategies. The present report sets the stage for the overall project by undertaking a review of the causes of vulnerability to drought in East Africa and the western Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) of South Asia, and discussing the options to increase resilience to drought in the agricultural sector. Agriculture is a high-risk endeavor in both regions, due to a combination of recurrent droughts—which may intensify due to climate change—poor soil fertility, and a host of constraints faced by farmers, especially low access to input and output markets. These factors, combined with farmers’ high aversion to risk, stifle investments in agriculture, resulting in continuous underachieving production, low income, and persisting poverty.

This paper contributes to the literature by developing a model of political clientelism based on an under-explored citizen attribute - political activism, in addition to two other attributes: political affiliation and income. The model uncovers the role of "politically active" individuals in their ability to influence and shape opinion, as well as the inclination of politicians to offer targeted transfers to this group in order to indirectly influence other voters (ie., activists or undecided voters).

This book offers an assessment of the performance, impact, and welfare implications of the world’s largest employment guarantee programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Launched by the Indian government, the programme covers entire rural area of the country. The book presents various micro-level analyses of the programme and its heterogeneous impacts at different scales, almost a decade after its implementation. While there are some doubts over the future of the scheme as well as its magnitude, nature and content, the central government appears committed to it, as a ‘convergence scheme’ of various other welfare and rural development programmes being implemented at both national and state level. The book discusses the outcomes of the programme and offers critical insights into the lessons learnt, not only in the context of India, but also for similar schemes in countries in South and South-East Asia as well as in Africa, and Latin America. Adopting inter-disciplinary perspectives in analysing these issues, this unique book uses a judicious mix of methods---integrating quantitative and qualitative tools---and will be an invaluable resource for analysts, NGOs, policymakers and academics alike.

This study investigates the consequences of poor implementation in public workfare programs, focusing on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India. Using nationally representative data, we test empirically for a discouraged worker effect arising from either of two mechanisms: administrative rationing of jobs among those who seek work and delays in wage payments. We find strong evidence at the household and district levels that administrative rationing discourages subsequent demand for work. Delayed wage payments seem to matter significantly during rainfall shocks. We find further that rationing is strongly associated with indicators of implementation ability such as staff capacity. Politics appears to play only a limited role. The findings suggest that assessments of the relevance of public programs over their lifecycle need to factor in implementation quality.

This book analyses economic successes in South Asia and the reasons why they emerge by offering an in-depth analysis of a few case studies against the backdrop of overall policy context and economic performance of these countries. Offering a brief comparative review of South Asia in a global context, the book shows that the region remains an economically and socially lagging region. The author argues that within South Asia, most countries demonstrate examples of economic or social success. This book explores such successes that provide lessons for other South Asian countries and beyond. Case studies include the textile industry and microcredit in Bangladesh, information technology in India, forestry management in Nepal, surgical and sports goods in Pakistan, and human development in Sri Lanka. At the macro level, the book discusses India’s catch-up growth first given the country’s global importance and because of the prominence of the debate on its catch-up growth to development economics. A novel addition to the literature with its focus on successful initiatives with broad policy implications, this book will be of interest to researchers in the field of development economics, development studies and South Asian Studies, in particular South Asian policy.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in India with the multiple objectives of providing employment in a rights-based framework, addressing rural poverty, checking migration, and building rural infrastructure. As such, every year around 15–20 per cent of households in India overall and 30 per cent in rural India receive some form of employment share under the MGNREGA programme. This volume looks at various aspect of the scheme, its linkage with employment, agricultural wages, livelihood and food security, gender issues, and migration in rural India. It also discusses challenges in implementation, hurdles and the relative successes of the scheme. Based on primary survey data from 16 major states in the country, the findings of the study provide key insights into MGNREGA and assess the implications for other welfare-oriented programmes. Rich in empirical data, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of political economy, economics, agriculture, rural development and sociology, as well as policymakers and nongovernmental organisations.