TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Basu, Parantap
AU  - Sen, Kunal
        TI  - Welfare Implications of India's Employment Guarantee Programme with a Wage Payment Delay
        PY  - 2015/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 9454
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp9454
        AB  - We examine the efficacy of a popular anti-poverty programme, namely the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) of the Government of India. We argue that a chronic friction of wage payment delay in this flagship programme could adversely affect the welfare of the poor through two channels. First, it causes deferred consumption. Second, it turns labour into a credit good which makes an indebted household work harder to clear off his existing debt. The loss of welfare persists even when the worker has an outside employment option. If a programme of financial inclusion increases the indebtedness of the poor, a wage payment delay in the NREGA programme could escalate this welfare loss although the official indicator of success (i.e., participation) may not reveal this friction.
        KW  - NREGA
KW  - employment guarantee
KW  - credit good
KW  - financial inclusion
        ER  -