Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Corruption in India's Workfare System

腐败是欠发达国家重新分配和减贫的主要障碍。 这个项目研究了印度农村官僚的选择，他们可以在一个单一的就业保障计划中从多个来源（政府或企业）窃取。 程序参数的外生变化使得调整和检验关于腐败行为的几个核心假设成为可能。 腐败官员在追求利益最大化时面临哪些约束？一种形式的腐败对其他形式的腐败是否有积极或消极的溢出效应？对这些问题的探讨将为腐败行为的经济学理论提供微观的实证基础。 这一方法补充了最近关于腐败的经验文献，这些文献衡量了干预措施对腐败程度的简化影响（Reinikka Svensson，2005年; Olken，2007年）。 这一法案代表了印度将新发现的财富转移到落后的农村大多数人手中的前所未有的尝试：它向每个农村家庭提供每年100天带薪就业的法律的保障。 潜在的财政影响是巨大的，预计成本将达到GDP的1-2%。 该计划的成功，沿着其持续的政治可行性，与腐败能够被控制的程度有关。然而，来自当地非政府组织领导人和审计研究的轶事证据表明，腐败至少在该国的某些地区是猖獗的，《国家选举和性别平等法》提供了一个研究腐败的独特机会，因为作为其透明度措施的一部分，所有官方微观记录都可以在网上查阅。 将这些官方记录与从（据称的）项目参与者那里收集的原始调查数据进行比较，可以得出一个可信的腐败衡量标准，包括虚报参与率和少付工资。 此外，最低工资等关键计划参数由各州设定，并随着时间的推移而变化。 比较结果之前和之后，这些变化的两侧的国家borders.The NREGA的影响产生可信的差异中的差异估计还提供了一个令人兴奋的背景下，研究政治经济学的问题，如纪律权力的选举，权力下放，和妇女的领导。腐败的政治经济学中最基本的问题之一是直接选举的纪律是否可以强制执行良好的行为，我们通过调查NREGA参与者的政治行为来研究这一点。其次，政治权力下放和地方参与已成为一项受欢迎的发展战略。根据《国家农村经济改革法》，每个地区的一半项目必须由一名官员在街区一级（或更高一级）实施，另一半项目必须由一名民选官员在乡村一级实施。 腐败的差异和对工资变化的不同反应将揭示这些实施形式的相对优点。 最后，在国际比较和地方研究中，女政治家与腐败呈负相关（Duflo和Topalova，2004年）。在印度，一些克行政委员会被随机挑选出一名女行政委员，这一政策对《国家农村经济改革和性别平等法》项目中的腐败产生的影响很容易评估。

Corruption is a major barrier to redistribution and poverty alleviation in less-developed countries. This project studies choices by bureaucrats in rural India who can steal from multiple sources-the government or beneficiaries-in a single employment guarantee program. Exogenous changes in program parameters make it possible to adapt and test several core hypotheses about corrupt behavior. What constraints do corrupt officials face in maximizing profit? Does corruption in one form have positive or negative spillover effects onto other forms? Answering these questions will provide micro-empirical foundations for economic theories of corrupt behavior. This approach complements the recent empirical literature on corruption which has measured reduced-form effects of interventions on the level of corruption (Reinikka & Svensson 2005, Olken 2007).The project studies corruption in the context of India's flagship redistributive scheme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). This act represents an unprecedented attempt to transfer India's new-found wealth to its lagging rural majority: it extends to every rural household a legal guarantee of 100 days per year of paid employment. The potential fiscal ramifications are massive, with costs expected to reach 1-2% of GDP. The success of the program, along with its continued political viability, is linked to the extent to which the corruption can be controlled. However, anecdotal evidence from local NGO leaders and audit studies suggests that corruption is rampant at least in some parts of the country.The NREGA affords a unique opportunity to study corruption because, as part of its transparency measures, all official micro-records are available online. Comparing these official records to original survey data collected from (alleged) program participants yields a credible measure of corruption, both in the form of over-reported participation and under-paid wages. Moreover, key program parameters such as minimum wages are set by states and have changed over time. Comparing outcomes before and after these changes on both sides of state borders generates credible difference-in-differences estimates of their effects.The NREGA also provides an exciting context in which to study issues in political economy such as the disciplinary power of elections, decentralization, and women's leadership. Among the most basic questions in the political economy of corruption is whether the discipline of direct elections can enforce good behavior, and we study this by surveying NREGA participants on their political behavior. Next, political decentralization and local participation has become a popular strategy for development. Under the NREGA, half of the projects in each district must be implemented at the block level (or higher) by a bureaucrat, and the other half at the gram panchayat (village) level by an elected official. Differences in corruption and differential responses to wage changes will shed light on the relative merits of these forms of implementation. Finally, female politicians are negatively associated with corruption in both international comparisons and local studies (Duflo and Topalova 2004). In India, some gram panchayats are randomly chosen to have a female sarpanch and the impacts of this policy on corruption in NREGA projects can be readily assessed.