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| Duflo, Esther; Pande, Rohini. |
| The construction of large dams is one of the most costly and controversial forms of public infrastructure investment in developing countries, but little is known about their impact. This paper studies the productivity and distributional effects of large dams in India. To account for endogenous placement of dams we use GIS data and the fact that river gradient affects a district's suitability for dams to provide instrumental variable estimates of their impact. We find that, in a district where a dam is built, agricultural production does not increase but poverty does. In contrast, districts located downstream from the dam benefit from increased irrigation and see agricultural production increase and poverty fall. Overall, our estimates suggest that large... |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Dams; Development planning; Program evaluation; India; Public Economics; O21; O12; H43; H23. |
| Ano: 2005 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28373 |
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| Pande, Rohini. |
| This paper examines the political economy of coordination in a simple two-sector model in which individuals' choice of agricultural technology affects industrialization. We demonstrate the existence of multiple equilibria; the economy is either characterized by the use of a traditional agricultural technology and a low level of industrialization or the use of a mechanized technology and a high level of industrialization. Relative to the traditional technology, the mechanized technology increases output but leaves some population groups worse off. We show that the distributional implications of choosing the mechanized technology restrict the possibility of Pareto-improving coordination by an elected policy-maker, even when we allow for income redistribution. |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Industrialization; Choice of technology; Government policy; Political Economy; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; O14; H10. |
| Ano: 2005 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28383 |
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| Bond, Philip; Pande, Rohini. |
| Individuals inability to coordinate investment may significantly constrain economic development. In this paper we study a simple investment game characterized by multiple equilibria and ask whether an income-based incentive scheme can uniquely implement the high investment outcome. A general property of this game is the presence of a crossover investment point at which an individuals incomes from investment and non-investment are equal. We show that arbitrarily small errors in the governments knowledge of this crossover point can prevent unique implementation of the high investment outcome. We conclude that informational requirements are likely to severely limit a governments ability to use income-based incentive schemes as a coordination device. |
| Tipo: Working or Discussion Paper |
Palavras-chave: Coordination; Public policy; Income taxation; Implementation; International Development; O21; H23. |
| Ano: 2005 |
URL: http://purl.umn.edu/28436 |
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