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Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India

Karthik Muralidharan; Paul Niehaus; Sandip Sukhtankar · American Economic Review, 106(10), 2895–2929 · 2016

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Type
Article
Author
Karthik Muralidharan; Paul Niehaus; Sandip Sukhtankar
Identifier
DOI 10.1257/aer.20141346
Accessed
2026-09-01

Claims citing this source

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EstablishedMuralidharan, Niehaus and Sukhtankar found that stricter biometric verification in a major Indian welfare programme reduced leakage, but 1.5 to 2 million legitimate beneficiaries lost benefits at some point, mostly because of how the transition was managed.