中文摘要
我们评估了一项面向印度最“落后”地区的农村基础设施建设与维护计划的影响。需要强调的是，这些基础设施拨款用于现有基础设施的维护、改善和互补性投资。我们采用断点回归设计（RDD），结合覆盖整个企业规模分布的多个数据集以及家庭就业调查，为该计划促进当地经济活动的有效性提供了证据。在处理组地区，该政策似乎提高了村级总体就业水平，并增加了微型企业数量，而正规企业则未出现变化。这些增长很可能由农业雇工占比下降所驱动。在个体层面，工资和工作天数也有所增加。有提示性证据表明，农村电气化和连通性均是产生上述结果的重要机制。我们发现，该计划在电力密集型和道路密集型行业中，以及在计划实施前已有铺装道路和电力供应的村庄中，影响更强。总体而言，本文的研究提示，改善农村基础设施条件可以促进经济活动，尤其是通过促进微型企业的发展。
Abstract
We evaluate the impact of a rural infrastructure development and maintenance scheme, directed towards India’s most “backward” districts. Importantly, these infrastructure grants were spent on maintenance, improvements, and complementary investments to existing infrastructure. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design and multiple data sets covering the entire firm size distribution, as well as household employment surveys, we show evidence on the effectiveness of the program on local economic activity. In treated districts, the policy appears to have increased overall village-level employment, and the number of microenterprises, but there were no changes for formal firms. These increases were likely driven by a decline in the share of agricultural wage workers. At the individual-level, wages and the number of days worked also increased. There is suggestive evidence that both rural electrification and connectivity were important mechanisms driving our results. We find stronger impacts in electricity and road-intensive industries, and in villages that had paved roads and electricity prior to the program. Overall, our paper suggests that improving rural infrastructure conditions can boost economic activity, especially by stimulating microenterprises.