Dr. Viola

Economics Seminar- Talk by Dr. Viola Asri

HSS Committee Room

09 Nov, 2022

All are cordially invited to a talk by Dr. Viola Asri, University of Konstanz at 3:30 PM on 9th November (Wednesday) in the HSS Committee Room (MS 611).

 

Title: Missing the target: Does increased capacity of the local government improve beneficiary selection?

 Authors: Viola Asri, Kumar Biswas, Sebastian Fehrler, Urs Fischbacher, Katharina Michaelowa, Atonu Rabbani

 

Abstract: To improve targeting of social policies, research has focused on incentives and accountability of local decision makers. This paper identifies the capacity of the local government as another key constraint which has received little attention. We examine whether and how a locally implemented capacity building intervention including training and data provision for the national Old Age Allowance program in Bangladesh can improve the selection of beneficiaries. The results of a large-scale clustered randomized controlled trial in 80 rural municipalities show that the intervention enhanced the knowledge of eligibility criteria but did not improve the targeting performance. We further document that improvements in the targeting performance depend on selection committee's willingness to improve the selection of beneficiaries.