Analyzing the Impact of the World’s Largest Public Works Project on Crime

India started the implementation of a rural public works program in 2006, covering all districts of the country within three years. The program guarantees 100 days of employment per year at minimum wage to each rural household on demand, with the goal of reducing joblessness and poverty. This paper exploits the design and implementation of this program to investigate its employment impact on various types of crimes, ranging from burglary to kidnapping to riots. It shows that the program acts as an insurance scheme because an increase in rainfall, which is negatively correlated with agricultural production, lowers the demand for jobs under the program. Controlling for rainfall, it finds that employment generated by the program has a negative impact on both property and violent crime. Although crime elasticises with respect to employment are small, this finding represents another dimension of the social benefit generated by the program. [Working Paper 22499]