In Light of What They Know : How Do Local Leaders Make Targeting Decisions?
This paper analyzes how local leaders make targeting decisions in the context of a public workfare program in the Lao People~^!!^s Democratic Republic. The study finds that village heads are progressive in their targeting, prioritizing the poorer h...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/683561604432151071/In-Light-of-What-They-Know-How-do-Local-Leaders-Make-Targeting-Decisions http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34732 |
| Summary: | This paper analyzes how local leaders
make targeting decisions in the context of a public workfare
program in the Lao People~^!!^s Democratic Republic. The
study finds that village heads are progressive in their
targeting, prioritizing the poorer households in their
villages. The study benchmarks this decentralized selection
to the common alternative proxy means test method and finds
that village heads are at least as progressive as a proxy
means test method approach. To illuminate what
poverty-related information village heads could plausibly be
incorporating into their internal selection decisions, the
study designs and administers a set of exercises for village
heads to rank villagers on land ownership, access to
nutrition, and experience with recent shocks -- indicators
that are likely to differ in their observability to village
heads and could plausibly be associated with need for public
support. The study finds that village heads~^!!^
perceptions, as revealed through the ranking exercise,
differ substantially from actual levels reported in surveys
of the villagers themselves. The study then uses a
data-driven machine learning approach to identify the
predictors of village head selection. It concludes that
village heads rely on a combination of easily observable
household characteristics, forming a holistic impression of
household welfare, rather than specific indicators like
actual land ownership, nutrition, or economic shocks. |
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