Regression results in Table 7 suggest that NREGS participation led to a significant increase in casual labor income overall and for male and female participants separately, with estimated magnitudes of Rs. 3,304, 1,797, and 1,522 for total, female, and male casual labor income, respectively. In all cases, the falsification tests using pre-program income levels support the parallel trend assumption. Administrative data put mean NREGS-induced transfers to program participants in the July 2007 to June 2008 period at Rs. 3,340 per household, close to the increase in total casual labor income estimated here (Rs. 3,304). This suggests that NREGS work is unlikely to have crowded out other forms of casual employment and that, contrary to what was found at the national level (Niehaus and Sukhtankar 2012), leakage was limited.

# **4.3 Impact Pathways through Land Investment**

The fact that our survey includes information on land-related investment allows us to explore the extent to which NREGS helped increase agricultural investment. Descriptively, Table 8 displays the share of households that invested in improving their land in the two pre-program periods (June 2000 to December 2003 and January 2004 to June 2006) and when the program was active (July 2006 to June 2008), for those who did and did not participate in NREGS.<sup>14</sup> Levels of investment were uniformly higher during the program period compared to before, possibly reflecting the impact of NREGS-related investment incentives. While we find no significant pre-program differences in the propensity to invest in land improvement between program participants and nonparticipants in the pre-program periods, this changed markedly once NREGS became available, when the probability of making land investment was 46 percent for participants versus 30 percent for nonparticipants in phase 1, 72 percent versus 36 percent in phase 2, and 55 percent versus 40 percent (though not significantly different) in phase 3 districts. This suggests not only that NREGS fostered landrelated investments overall but also that program participation increased the likelihood of undertaking such investments. As the survey asked if investment was supported by NREGS, we can compare the share of land improvement activities with and without NREGS support between households that did or did not participate. We note that 38 percent versus 23 percent in phase 1, 66 percent versus 21 percent in phase 2, and 50 percent versus 34 percent (again insignificant) in phase 3 districts were supported by NREGS.<sup>15</sup> To explore the impacts of NREGS participation on land investment, we estimate equation (2) using as a dependent variable the change in land investment between 2006 and 2008. Most other variables are as defined above, and we also conduct a falsification test using 2004 and 2006 data. As earlier, we estimate this for the total sample and subsamples of scheduled castes and tribes and other castes. The results in

> 14 Land improvement activities include silt application, borewell creation, land leveling or terracing, establishing an orchard, bunding for erosion control, soil and water conservation, deepening a well or tank, installing a dug well, building or repairing channels, and cleaning bushes and other vegetation.

> 15 This may be due to the fact that, as illustrated in Table 2, most projects in phase 3 were still unfinished.

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