Tangible Information and Citizen Empowerment: Identification Cards and Food Subsidy Programs in Indonesia
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Tangible Information and Citizen Empowerment.pdf
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Author(s)
Kyle, Jordan
Sumarto, Sudarno
Banerjee, Abhijit
Hanna, Rema N.
Olken, Benjamin
Date Issued
March 2018
Journal
Journal of Political Economy
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Citation
Banerjee, Abhijit, Rema Hanna, Jordan Kyle, Benjamin A. Olken, and Sudarno Sumarto. “Tangible Information and Citizen Empowerment: Identification Cards and Food Subsidy Programs in Indonesia.” Journal of Political Economy 126, no. 2 (April 2018): 451–491.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Redistribution programs in developing countries often “leak” because local officials do not implement programs as the central government intends. We study one approach to reducing leakage. In an experi- ment in over 550 villages, we test whether mailing cards with program information to targeted beneficiaries increases the subsidy they re- ceive from a subsidized rice program. On net, beneficiaries received 26 percent more subsidy in card villages. Ineligible households re- ceived no less, so this represents substantially lower leakage.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1086/696226
