Social Welfare Portability and Migration: Evidence from India’s Public Distribution System
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy · 2025 · Travis Baseler、Ambar Narayan、Odyssia Ng、Sutirtha Sinha Roy
中文摘要
本文研究一项旨在使食品权益可在印度全国范围内携带的新计划。我们首先利用神秘顾客调查以及对迁移者和经销商的调查，描述食品权益可携带性的现状。随后，我们通过一项整群随机对照试验，向家庭告知该计划及其使用障碍。处理对权益可携带性信念的影响最初为正，但随着相关信念普遍上升，后来转为负向。这些模式与以下解释一致：我们的实验提高了人们对该计划的知晓程度，却降低了他们对其实施的信任。向城市迁移的现象减少，表明食品获取会影响迁移者的目的地选择。(JEL D12, D83, H53, I38, O12, O18, R23)
Abstract
This paper studies a new program designed to make food entitlements portable throughout India. We first characterize the state of food entitlement portability using mystery shoppers and surveys of migrants and distributors. We then inform households about the program—and barriers to using it—through a cluster randomized controlled trial. Treatment impacts on beliefs about entitlement portability were initially positive but later turned negative following a general rise in beliefs. These patterns are consistent with our experiment increasing awareness of the program but decreasing trust in its implementation. Migration to cities decreased, suggesting access to food affects migrants’ destination choices. (JEL D12, D83, H53, I38, O12, O18, R23)