Benefit incidence and the timing of program capture

Abstract

Survey-based estimates of average program participation conditional on income are often used in assessing the distributional impacts of public spending reforms. But program participation could well be nonhomogeneous, so that marginal impacts of program expansion or contraction differ greatly from average impacts. Using the geographic variation found in sample survey data for rural India for 1993-94, the authors estimate the marginal odds of participating in schooling and antipoverty programs. Their results suggest early capture of these programs by the nonpoor. Thus, conventional methods of assessing benefit incidence underestimate the gains to India's rural poor from higher public outlays, and their loss from program cuts.Services&Transfers to Poor,Primary Education,ICT Policy and Strategies,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Primary Education,ICT Policy and Strategies,Health Economics&Finance,Rural Poverty Reduction