TY  - BOOK
AU  - Murgai, Rinku
AU  - Ravallion, Martin
TI  - Is a guaranteed living wage a good anti-poverty policy?
U1  - 339.46 
PY  - 2005///
CY  - Washington, D.C.
PB  - World Bank
KW  - Poverty-India
KW  - Minimum wage - India
KW  - Casual labor - India
N1  - Includes bibliographical references
N2  - "Minimum wages are generally thought to be unenforceable in developing rural economies. But there is one solution - a workfare scheme in which the government acts as the employer of last resort. Is this a cost-effective policy against poverty? Using a micro econometric model of the casual labor market in rural India, the authors find that a guaranteed wage rate sufficient for a typical poor family to reach the poverty line would bring the annual poverty rate down from 34 percent to 25 percent at a fiscal cost representing 3-4 percent of GDP when run for the whole year. Confining the scheme to the lean season (three months) would bring the annual poverty rate down to 31 percent at a cost of 1.3 percent of GDP. While the gains from a guaranteed wage rate would be better targeted than a uniform (untargeted) cash transfer, the extra costs of the wage policy imply that it would have less impact on poverty. ""--World Bank web site."
ER  -