Short-term Migration Rural Workfare Programs and Urban Labor Markets - Evidence from India

Clément Imbert and John Papp
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John Papp: R.I.C.E

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper provides some of the first evidence that rural development policies can have fundamental effects on the reallocation of labor between rural and urban areas. It studies the spillover effects of the world's largest rural workfare program, India's rural employment guarantee. We find that the workfare program has substantial con¬sequences: it reduces short-term (or seasonal) migration to urban areas by 9% and increases wages for manual, short-term work in urban areas by 6%. The implied elas¬ticity of unskilled wages with respect to short-term migration is high (-0.7).

Keywords: internal migration; workfare programs; spillover effects; india (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H53 J61 O15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w ... werp_1116_imbert.pdf

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Working Paper: Short-term Migration Rural Workfare Programs and Urban Labor Markets - Evidence from India (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:1116

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