Public Good Provision in Indian Rural Areas: The Returns to Collective Action by Microfinance Groups
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 7397
2015
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Example: if you select the 1-year option for an article published in 2019 and a metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019. If you select the 3-year option for the same article published in 2019 and the metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019, 2018 and 2017.
Citation Benchmarking is provided by Scopus and SciVal and is different from the metrics context provided by PlumX Metrics.
Paper Description
Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most common form of microfinance in India. The authors provide evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake collective actions for the provision of public goods within village communities. Using a theoretical model, this paper shows that an elected official, whose aim is to maximize re-election chances, exerts higher effort in providing public goods when private citizens undertake collective action and coordinate their voluntary contributions towards the same goods. This effect occurs although government and private contributions are assumed to be substitutes in the technology of providing public goods. Using first-hand data on SHGs in India, the paper tests the prediction of the model and shows that, in response to collective action by SHGs, local authorities tackle a larger variety of public issues, and are more likely to tackle issues of interest to SHGs. The findings highlight how the social behavior of SHGs can influence the governance of rural Indian communities.
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