Published on Development Impact

Blog links November 14: the missing middle rediscovered! MNREGA vs cash transfers, tax more, and more…

David McKenzie

November 14, 2014

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In the latest Journal of Economic Perspectives several papers with a development angle:
- Jim Tybout on why the missing middle may exist after all (at least in some poor countries).
- Tim Besley and Torsten Persson on why do developing countries tax so little? “the combination of an informal economic structure, income from natural resources or specific commodities, and the availability of aid (for some countries) pushes many low-income countries into a situation of a low tax/GDP ratio levied on a narrow tax base” but also due to political institutions, culture, and government effectiveness.
- Kaivan Munshi reviews the role of community networks in the development process.
DIME field coordinator training is next week – you can participate remotely via web-streaming.
In Vox, what experiments show is the best way to win US elections, but campaigns are still not doing.
On Ideas for India, Abreu, Bardhan, Ghatak, Kotwal, Mookherjee and Ray argue against the idea that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) should be replaced by a cash transfer program
Reminder: the call for innovative ideas on SME growth is currently open.

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Authors

David McKenzie

Lead Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank

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econ phd student

November 18, 2014

The ideas piece on CCTs vs MNREGA is very poorly written, with arguments poorly supported by studies and numbers, and then they lament "facile attacks uninformed by the facts"!! No really, chutzpah. Expected more from these big names... sad. For example, the study on the effects on education make the comparison with CCTs only by looking at benefits, not also the costs of the programs (which are likely... very different). So how can you compare, really? Also, they call for "improving governance," blatantly ignoring that we have little idea how to do that, in practice, in India. Or at least without informing us of how to do it. I have no stake in this conversation, I'm just disappointed when I see bad scholarship.