Guns and butter? Fighting violence with the promise of development

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Khanna, Gaurav; Zimmermann, Laura
• 署名单位: University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; University System of Georgia; University of Georgia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.09.006
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 120-141
• 关键词: Public-works program; National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme; INDIA; Regression-discontinuity design; CONFLICT

摘要

There is growing awareness that development-oriented government policies may be an important counterinsurgency strategy, but existing papers are usually unable to disentangle various mechanisms. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we analyze the impact of one of the world's largest anti-poverty programs, India's NREGS, on the intensity of Maoist conflict. We find short-run increases of insurgency-related violence, police-initiated attacks, and insurgent attacks on civilians. We discuss how these results relate to established theories in the literature. One mechanism consistent with the empirical patterns is that NREGS induces civilians to share more information with the state, improving police effectiveness.