The Library
E-governance, accountability, and leakage in public programs : experimental evidence from a financial management reform in India
Tools
Tools
Tools
Banerjee, Abhijit, Duflo, Esther, Imbert, Clément, Mathew, Santhosh and Pande, Rohini (2020) E-governance, accountability, and leakage in public programs : experimental evidence from a financial management reform in India. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 12 (4). pp. 39-72. doi:10.1257/app.20180302 ISSN 1945-7782.
|
PDF
WRAP-E-governance-accountability-leakage-experimental-financial-India-Imbert-2019.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (9Mb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20180302
Abstract
Can e-governance reforms improve government policy? By making information available on a real-time basis, information technologies may reduce the theft of public funds. We analyze a large field experiment and the nationwide scale-up of a reform to India's workfare program. Advance payments were replaced by "just- in-time" payments, triggered by e-invoicing, making it easier to detect misreporting. Leakages went down: program expenditures dropped by 24%, while employment slightly increased; there were fewer fake households in the official database; program officials' personal wealth fell by 10%. However, payment delays increased. The nationwide scale-up resulted in a persistent 19% reduction in program expenditure.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General) J Political Science > JQ Political institutions (Asia, Africa, Australia, Pacific Area, etc.) |
|||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | |||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Internet in public administration, Internet in public administration -- India, Expenditures, Public -- Government policy -- India, Public welfare administration -- India, Welfare recipients -- Employment -- India | |||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | American Economic Journal: Applied Economics | |||||||||
| Publisher: | American Economic Association | |||||||||
| ISSN: | 1945-7782 | |||||||||
| Official Date: | October 2020 | |||||||||
| Dates: |
|
|||||||||
| Volume: | 12 | |||||||||
| Number: | 4 | |||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 39-72 | |||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1257/app.20180302 | |||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | |||||||||
| Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | "Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 by the American Economic Association. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of American Economic Association publications for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not distributed for profit or direct commercial advantage and that copies show this notice on the first page or initial screen of a display along with the full citation, including the name of the author. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than AEA must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. The author has the right to republish, post on servers, redistribute to lists and use any component of this work in other works. For others to do so requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Permissions may be requested from the American Economic Association Administrative Office by going to the Contact Us form and choosing ""Copyright/Permissions Request"" from the menu. " | |||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | |||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 12 August 2019 | |||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 14 January 2020 | |||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
|
|||||||||
| Related URLs: |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
