General Equilibrium Effects of (Improving) Public Employment Programs: Experimental Evidence From India
中文摘要
公共就业计划既可能通过其提供的收入直接影响贫困，也可能通过一般均衡效应间接影响贫困。我们利用一项改善印度国家农村就业保障计划（NREGS）实施情况、并在较大范围（次县级）随机推行的改革，对这两种效应进行估计。该改革使受益家庭的收入提高了14%，并使贫困率下降了26%。重要的是，收入增量的86%来自计划外收入，其驱动因素是私营部门（实际）工资和就业水平的提高。这一模式似乎更多地反映了劳动力市场的不完全竞争，而非生产率的提升：劳动者的保留工资上升，土地收益下降，且土地持有更为集中的村庄就业增幅更大。尽管工资上涨，非农企业数量和就业仍迅速增长，这与本地需求在结构转型中发挥作用的解释一致。这些结果表明，公共就业计划能够有效减少发展中国家的贫困，并且还可能提高经济效率。
Abstract
Public employment programs may affect poverty both directly through the income they provide and indirectly through general equilibrium effects. We estimate both effects, exploiting a reform that improved the implementation of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and whose rollout was randomized at a large (sub‐district) scale. The reform raised beneficiary households' earnings by 14%, and reduced poverty by 26%. Importantly, 86% of income gains came from non‐program earnings, driven by higher private‐sector (real) wages and employment. This pattern appears to reflect imperfectly competitive labor markets more than productivity gains: worker's reservation wages increased, land returns fell, and employment gains were higher in villages with more concentrated landholdings. Non‐agricultural enterprise counts and employment grew rapidly despite higher wages, consistent with a role for local demand in structural transformation. These results suggest that public employment programs can effectively reduce poverty in developing countries, and may also improve economic efficiency.