Does Elite Capture Matter? Local Elites and Targeted Welfare Programs in Indonesia

By Vivi Alatas, Abhijit Banerjee, Rema Hanna, Benjamin A. Olken, Ririn Purnamasari, M. Wai-Poi. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2019

127 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper investigates how elite capture affects the welfare gains from targeted government transfer programs in Indonesia, using both a high-stakes field experiment that varied the extent of elite influence and nonexperimental data on a variety of existing government programs. While the relatives of those holding formal leadership positions are more likely to receive benefits in some programs, we argue that the welfare consequences of elite capture appear small: eliminating elite capture entirely would improve the welfare gains from these programs by less than one percent.

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6c75067b32209ffa7f77a1c75701b9adacb64dd7

Citations in the corpus

• Tangible Information and Citizen Empowerment: Identification Cards and Food Subsidy Programs in Indonesia (2017, unknown): “Alatas et al. (2013) show that these changes to beneficiary lists by local leaders likely happen during the distribution of the rice rather than through the determination of the official eligibility lists.”