Rural employment guarantee programme in India and its impact on household educational decisions: A focus on private coaching

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of household participation in a large-scale public works programme in India on educational decisions including children schooling and expenditure incurred on private coaching and other educational components. Exogenous variation in proximity of households to a river is used to control for the potential endogeneity. The findings indicate positive impact of the programme on expenditure on private coaching while having no impact on other educational expenditures indicating higher income elasticity of private coaching. The paper thus emphasizes on various direct and indirect benefits of the programme which necessitate its effective implementation at the local level.