Working Paper: NBER ID: w26744
Authors: Karthik Muralidharan; Paul Niehaus; Sandip Sukhtankar
Abstract: We evaluate reforms that integrated more stringent, biometric ID requirements into India’s largest social protection program, using large-scale randomized and natural experiments. Corruption fell but with substantial costs to legitimate beneficiaries, 1.5-2 million of whom lost access to benefits at some point during the reforms. Adverse effects appear to have been driven primarily by decisions about the way the transition was managed, illustrating both the risks of rapid reforms, and how the impacts of promising new technologies can be highly sensitive to the protocols governing their use.
Keywords: Aadhaar; Biometric Authentication; Welfare Programs; Public Distribution System; India
JEL Codes: D73; H53; O30; Q18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Reconciliation protocols (D74) | impact on outcomes (I14) |
| ABBA was necessary for reconciliation to succeed (D74) | reduction in leakage (L15) |
| Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA) (J47) | increase in exclusion errors (Y60) |
| Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA) (J47) | probability of receiving no commodities at all (Q02) |
| Reconciliation protocols (D74) | exacerbation of exclusion errors (Y60) |
| Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA) (J47) | leakage decreased (F32) |