TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Khanna, Gaurav
AU  - Zimmermann, Laura V
        TI  - Guns and Butter? Fighting Violence with the Promise of Development
        PY  - 2015/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 9160
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp9160
        AB  - There is growing awareness that development-oriented government policies may be an important counterinsurgency strategy, but existing papers are usually unable to disentangle various mechanisms. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we analyze the impact of one of the world's largest anti-poverty programs, India's NREGS, on the intensity of Maoist conflict. We find short-run increases of insurgency-related violence, police-initiated attacks, and insurgent attacks on civilians. We discuss how these results relate to established theories in the literature. The main mechanism consistent with the empirical patterns is that NREGS induces civilians to share more information with the state, improving police effectiveness.
        KW  - public works program
KW  - National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
KW  - NREGA
KW  - NREGS
KW  - India
KW  - regression discontinuity design
KW  - terrorism
KW  - Naxalites
KW  - Maoists
KW  - conflict
KW  - insurgency
KW  - civil war
        ER  -