Centralised versus decentralised monitoring to reduce corruption: Insights from comparisons across Indian state
To learn more about this project, contact Principal Investigator Amrita Dhillon.
Project Summary
A seminal study by Olken (2007) on monitoring corruption compared the efficacy of top-down versus bottom-up audits in 100 villages in Indonesia, focusing on road-building. This project questions whether the conclusion holds only for such public works that require expert audits. When considering workfare programs in India where the main expenditure category is wages for poor rural beneficiaries, we might expect that social audits work better. Evidence on leakages and audits across Indian states is used to answer this question.
Policy and Programming Implications
The research is relevant for anti-corruption and audit agencies, as well as civil society organizations doing social audits who are interested in optimal audit design. It is relevant for Supreme Audit Authorities and third-party auditors, as well as governments interested in creating efficient systems for audit.
Research Questions
- Do social accountability initiatives work better in states where citizen awareness is high and in programmes that have personal, rather than collective, benefits for citizens?
- How do social audits and top-down audits compare in effectiveness across the two programmes and across the different states?
- How does the success of each type of audit depend on the degree of electoral competitiveness of the constituency?
- When top-down audits are used, how does the design of audits (e.g., random timing, frequency of audits) affect the success?
Methodology
The methodology used in this project involves comparing different areas that have been exposed to top-down audits and social audits differentially across states in India to understand whether exposure to greater frequency / intensity of audits leads to better outcomes. The current audit methodology will be critically analysed to seek improvements in the audit process.
Publications

Inter-State Comparison of Performance in MGNREGA (2011-2018) and PMGSY (2000-2018)
This report is based on publicly available data on MNREGA for the period 2011/12-2018/19, and PMGSY for the period 2000/01-2018/19. The Government of India (GoI) revised average budget of MGNREGA over this period has been INR 40867 crore per year…

Measuring Performance: Ranking State Success over Two Decades in India
This paper proposes new composite measures of relative and dynamic state performance to improve governance and delivery of public programs in developing countries with a federal structure. We rank the performance of 19 major Indian states on two large development…

Electoral Competition, Accountability and Corruption: Theory and Evidence from India
In developing countries with weak enforcement institutions, there is implicitly a large reliance on electoral incentives to reduce corruption. However electoral discipline works well only under some conditions. In this paper we study the effect of electoral competition on corruption…

The Case for Accessible Audit Data: Tracking the Effectiveness of Indian Governance Schemes
Poor governance is a major problem affecting outcomes as diverse as economic growth, the environment, and security, all of which impact people’s wellbeing. Big scams make headline news but it is rare for media outlets to follow up on investigations…
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Research Team Members

Amrita Dhillon
Professor of Economics, King’s College London

Eilon Solan
Professor of Mathematics, Tel Aviv University

Farzana Afridi
Associate Professor of Economics, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi

Arka Roy Chaudhuri
Assistant Professor of Economics, Shiv Nadar University, New Delhi

Chang Zhao
Assistant Professor of Economics, Nanjing Audit University