In this lecture organised by the NCAER, Karthik Muralidharan presented results from a path-breaking three-year study, undertaken jointly with Paul Niehaus (UCSD) and Sandip Sukhtankar (Dartmouth), on the impact of using biometrically-authenticated Smartcards to make payments to NREGS and Pension beneficiaries in Andhra Pradesh. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission presided as the Chief Guest at the lecture. Nachiket Mor, Board Chair of CARE India, also spoke on the ocassion.
Social protection programs in India are often plagued with leakage and corruption, and beneficiaries face several challenges in accessing payments. One of the most promising attempts to increase state capacity to effectively implement programs is India’s ambitious initiative to provide all residents with biometrically-authenticated Aadhar numbers linked to bank accounts, which can be used to directly transfer benefits. While this is a promising initiative, skeptics have raised several concerns including implementation challenges, subversion by vested interests, exclusion errors, and cost effectiveness.
The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Program used biometrically-authenticated Smartcards to make payments under NREGS and Social Security Pensions and was a functional pre-cursor to the integration of Aadhar with these programs. Prof. Muralidharan presented results from a large-scale, scientifically rigorous, randomized impact evaluation of the AP Smartcard program on beneficiary experiences and leakage. The study finds that the new technology delivered a faster, more predictable, and less corrupt payments process that was also highly cost-effective (in spite of several implementation challenges). The results suggest that investing in secure authentication and payment infrastructure can significantly enhance “state capacity” to effectively implement a broad range of programs.
Karthik Muralidharan is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, and a Non-resident Fellow at the NCAER. He is also affiliated with the NBER, BREAD, and J-PAL.
Dialogue on Deconstructing South-South Cooperation: A South Asian Perspective organised by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in collaboration with the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
This workshop focussed on the modelling work NCAER is undertaking on the economy-wide growth, employment and emission reduction gains from agricultural subsidy reform in collaboration with Professor Peter Dixon of Victoria University, Melbourne widely acknowledged as the world’s leading authority on CGE modelling. NCAER is one of the pioneers in CGE modelling in India and this work is utilising a state of the art, updated computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Indian economy at NCAER.
The eminent speakers included Prof Arvind Panagariya, Columbia University; Prof Peter Dixon, Victoria University; Prof Maureen Rimmer, Victoria University; Prof Ramesh Chand, Director, NCAP; Dr Kaushik Deb, BP India; and Mr S Sivakumar, Group Head, Agri Business, ITC Limited.
The workshop highlighted the NCAER project “Capturing the Potential for Greenhouse Gas Offsets in Indian Agriculture.” The project sheds light on hidden sources of growth and dynamism that India must tap. This project builds on existing research in this area by pursuing the case for agricultural policy reform not just on the basis of growth and employment gains but also from the perspective of green-house gas reduction benefits that could come, say, from subsidy reforms. The workshop also included a session on ‘economy-wide policy reform priorities and complimentary agricultural modelling scenarios’ by Professor Arvind Panagariya, Columbia University. Kaushik Deb from BP presented on ‘Energy and Climate Modelling Imperatives in India’ while Jyoti Gujral from IDFC spoke on ‘MAC and GHG issues’. A subsequent workshop will focus on the gains from a carbon offset program in Indian agriculture.
A lecture by Professor Arvind Panagariya on “A Reform Agenda for India’s new Government” was second in the series of lecture, instituted in memory of Sir Chintaman Dwarakanath Deshmukh, one of India’s most eminent economists and a founding father of NCAER. In his lecture, Professor Panagariya stressed that the overarching objective of the reforms by the new government must be targeted towards building a prosperous, strong and modern India. Presenting to a large audience at The Claridges, he outlined a strategy of reforms along two tracks. This lecture by Professor Panagariya was later published.
Arvind Panagariya
Arvind Panagariya is Professor of Economics & Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy and Director of the Columbia Program on Indian Economic Policies at Columbia University. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at NCAER. In 2012 the Government of India honoured Panagariya with the Padma Bhushan for his contributions in the field of economics and public policy. Panagariya has been the Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and Professor of Economics and Co-director of the Centre for International Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has worked with the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and UNCTAD in various capacities. Panagariya has written or edited more than a dozen books. His book India: The Emerging Giant (2008) was listed as a top pick of 2008 by the Economist magazine. The Economist has described his latest book (with J. Bhagwati) Why Growth Matters (2013) as “a manifesto for policymakers and analysts.” He writes a monthly column in the Times of India. Panagariya is co-editor of the India Policy Forum, the highest ranked economics journal out of India based on RePEc citation counts and published by NCAER with Brookings.
Bimal Jalan
Bimal Jalan is one of India’s best known economists. He was Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1997 to 2003 and nominated thereafter to the Rajya Sabha. He was the President of NCAER’s Governing Body during 1998-2008. Jalan is currently chair of RBI’s Committee for issuing new bank licenses. He has served as India’s Chief Economic Adviser, Banking Secretary, Finance Secretary, Member-Secretary of the Planning Commission, and Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. He has represented India as Executive Director on the boards of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He has written extensively on the Indian economy. His latest book is Emerging India: Economics, Politics and Reforms (Viking/Penguin, 2012).
About C.D. Deshmukh
Sir Chintaman Dwarakanath Deshmukh was the first Indian to be appointed Governor of the Reserve Bank of India in 1943 and was part of the official Indian delegation to the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference that led to the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He served as the Union Finance Minister during 1950 to 1956 under Nehru and was a founding member of NCAER’s first Governing Body. He later served as Chairman of the University Grants Commission and Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University, during which time he also founded the India International Centre. He was honoured by the President of India with the Padma Vibhushan in 1975. NCAER is privileged to honour the memory of C. D. Deshmukh as part of its own legacy.
The first lecture in this series was delivered by Prof Kaushik Basu in January 2013. Read more
The seminar dwelled around the recently announced blueprint for sweeping economic, social, and administrative reforms in China. Dr Xiao Geng, Vice President of Research at the Fung Global Institute (FGI) in Hong Kong delivered his talk through video conferencing. Dr Ramgopal Agarwala, Distinguished Fellow, RIS, who were invited as the discussant led the deliberations and interactions with the participants from amongst research community, representatives from embassies and eminent experts.
Dr Xiao Geng initiated his talk by referring to the explanation on the plenum. He discussed about stronger role of markets as a decisive force in allocating economic resources, the need to build basic economic institutions as well the need for tax and fiscal reforms. He affirmed that markets and the government are two sides of the same coin as good government can lead to efficient markets.Speaking optimistically about the reforms, the presenter shared research findings in select cities of China. The success of market forces being in action was illustrated through the case study of Foshan city that had attracted migrant labour as well as capital.
In a discussion following the presentation, Professor Ramgopal Aggarwal opined that the government is part of the solution rather than a problem. He stated the importance of Indian cities in future years and discussed factors that would help attract labour to the cities. He summarized by highlighting that both China and India should work together. A wide gap between the two economies could be destabilizing for the Asian region.
