E-governance, Accountability, and Leakage in Public Programs: Experimental Evidence from a Financial Management Reform in India

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Banerjee, Abhijit; Duflo, Esther; Imbert, Clement; Mathew, Santhosh; Pande, Rohini
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); University of Warwick; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20180302
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 39-72
• 关键词: corruption

摘要

Can e-governance reforms improve government policy? By making information available on a real-time basis, information technologies may reduce the theft of public funds. We analyze a large field experiment and the nationwide scale-up of a reform to India's workfare program. Advance payments were replaced by just-in-time payments, triggered by e-invoicing, making it easier to detect misreporting. Leakages went down: program expenditures dropped by 24 percent, while employment slightly increased: there were fewer fake households in the official database: and program officials' personal wealth fell by 10 percent. However, payment delays increased. The nationwide scale-up resulted in a persistent 19 percent reduction in program expenditure.