Research >> Government programs

Open defecation in rural India presents a puzzle: India has far higher open defecation rates than other developing regions where people are poorer, literacy rates are lower, and water is more scarce.  Because open defecation has terrible consequences for health,...Read More..

Poor maternal nutrition in India is a major cause for concern. The depth of India's maternal nutrition problems is evident in its high neonatal mortality, widespread underweight pre-pregnancy, low weight gain during pregnancy, and high rates of maternal anemia. Poor...Read More..

We estimate the effect of a large workfare program in India on private employment and wages by comparing trends in districts that received the program earlier relative to that received it later. Our results suggest that public sector hiring crowds...Read More..

We study the effect of a large rural public works program on short-term migration from rural to urban areas in India. Using cross-state variation in public employment provision for identification, we find that participation to the program significantly reduces short-term...Read More..

The Janani Suraksha Yojana, India’s “safe motherhood program,” is a conditional cash transfer to encourage women to give birth in health facilities. Despite the program’s apparent success increasing facility-based births, quantitative evaluations have not found corresponding improvements in health outcomes....Read More..

Even compared with neighbouring countries, latrine use is especially uncommon in India. How might caste – historically associated with sanitation inequality – interact with government sanitation policy?Using data from Rajasthan state, we investigate the effect of caste-based reservations for village chairmen...Read More..

Ending widespread open defecation and pursuing feasible methods of safe excreta disposal must be the top policy priorities for India. This paper draws policy lessons from the first 10 years of latrine construction under India’s Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), which...Read More..

A survey of the functioning of the National Old-Age Pension Scheme in two districts of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh reveals that beneficiaries have difficulties in accessing the banking system and face inordinate delays in receiving their meagre pensions. Yet, the scheme functions as an important provider...Read More..

Over a billion people worldwide defecate openly without a toilet or latrine, with profound health consequences: over two million children under 5 die from diarrheal disease each year; chronic infection prevents surviving children from reaching human capital potentials. Although it...Read More..

We compare the administrative data on the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MG-NREGA) with the estimates of public works employment from a large-scale survey undertaken by India's National Sample Survey Office. A widely held concern...Read More..