Public Works Program

Occasionally, authorities have taken draconian steps to retrofit an existing city. The redevelopment of Paris by the prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, under Louis Napoleon was a grandiose public works program stretching from 1853 to 1869. Haussmann s vast scheme absorbed unprecedented amounts of public debt, uprooted tens of thousands of people, and could have been accomplished only by a single executive authority not directly accountable to the electorate. 

Incentive compatible. Safety nets can change households behavior, for better or worse. To ensure that the balance of changes is positive, the role of safety nets should be kept to the minimum consistent with adequacy. The safety net system often may include programs that explicitly help build assets or incomes of their individual clients or communities by linking transfers to required or voluntary program elements. Public works programs can provide physical assets to commu-... 

Public works programs. These can be an effective short-term safety net but public works do not improve participants future labor market prospects. 

Workfare or public works programs. Public works programs in which the poor work for food or cash. 

Unconditional cash transfer programs may distort preferences. Where cash programs are strictly targeted based on income, they may result in a greater disincentive to work than in-kind transfers or public works programs. 

Labor-intensive public works programs have two main objectives first, to provide a source of income to poor workers, and second, to construct or rehabilitate public infrastructure. In the safety net literature, the shorthand term public works is often used for such programs.Sometimes the term workfare is used, although some reserve that term for programs that are more closely linked to labor activation programs that provide job search, training, or apprenticeships than the sort of heavy construction labor that is the traditional mainstay of labor-intensive public works. For a list of workfare programs, see table B.4 in appendix B. 

Public works programs differ in relation to the type of activity involved, the type of job provided, and the level of labor intensity. The selection of activities to be carried out determines the types of jobs to be performed and the labor intensity. 

Impact. By the first quarter of 1999, the program was providing 832,000 temporary jobs, though the number of applicants for such jobs was more than 1 million. Around 2.5 times more people benefited from the public works program than from unemployment insurance. The total cost of... 

Lessons. The public works program provided an effective and timely social insurance mechanism in response to the needs of vulnerable, able-bodied, unemployed people. 

Trabajar is an example of a well-implemented public works program that, using a low wage rate and high labor-intensity techniques, ensured that poor households received a significant share of the program s benefits. 

BOX 7.13 The Changing Natnre of Public Works Programs, India... 

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