Increasing infrastructure investment is a key growth strategy in many developing countries; policy debates emphasise the ‘trickle-down’ benefits of such investment. However, there is a gap in our understanding of what type of infrastructure affects individuals’ ability to actualise such opportunities. It is also imperative to understand whether infrastructure improvements disproportionately benefit the rich (who could perhaps better exploit resulting opportunities), or benefit the previously-excluded poor.

This project will exploit quasiexperimental variation generated by policy rules in India which created nearly random comparison groups (villages) that received different types of infrastructure at different points in time. Specifically, it will focus on understanding the impact of public provision of critical infrastructures such as rural roads and rural electrification. The programme rules provide discontinuities in the probability of receiving infrastructure at multiple village population thresholds, which will be exploited using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design.

Findings will be informative to policymakers who frequently advocate the ‘trickle-down’ benefits of better connectivity for rural households. The project also aims to shed light on the long-term effects of infrastructure investments and how the complementarities between them interact with local institutions. In doing so, the study will further our understanding of the barriers to the progress of rural societies, and whether infrastructure improvements have the potential to mitigate lack of social mobility among certain strata of the society.