India, Dec. 22 -- India's rural employment programme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (or MGNREGS), has long attracted two criticisms. First, that it is wasteful, and plagued by leakages and corruption; second, that it is distortionary - raising wages without boosting productivity, and hurting employment. Both critiques point to the same policy question: Should the answer be to fix implementation, or to redesign the programme itself?

Over the past decade, credible research has delivered a clear lesson. When implementation improves - by making work more readily available, reducing leakages, and ensuring timely wage payments - the gains are substantial. In a large-scale randomised evaluation of improving MGNREGS i...