This paper shows that adding a small application cost to a transfer program can substantially improve targeting through self-selection. Our village-level experiment in Indonesia finds that requiring beneficiaries This project was a collaboration involving many people. We thank

This paper investigates how elite capture affects the welfare gains from targeted government transfer programs in Indonesia, using both a high-stakes field experiment that varied the extent of elite influence and nonexperimental data on a variety of existing government programs. While the relatives of those holding formal leadership positions are more likely to receive benefits in some programs, we argue that the welfare consequences of elite capture appear small: eliminating elite capture entirely would improve the welfare gains from these programs by less than one percent.

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This paper investigates the impact of elite capture on the allocation of targeted government welfare programs in Indonesia, using both a high-stakes field experiment that varied the extent of elite influence and non-experimental data on a variety of existing government transfer programs. Conditional on their consumption level, there is little evidence that village elites and their relatives are more likely to receive aid programs than non-elites. Looking more closely, however, we find that this overall result masks a difference between different types of elites: those holding formal leadership positions are more likely to receive benefits, while informal leaders are actually less likely to. We show that capture by formal elites occurs during the distribution of benefits under the programs, and not during the processes when the beneficiary lists are determined by the central government. However, while elite capture exists, the welfare losses it creates appear quite small: since formal elites and their relatives are only 9 percent richer than non-elites, are at most about 8 percentage points more likely to receive benefits than non-elites, and represent at most 15 percent of the population, eliminating elite capture entirely would improve the welfare gains from these programs by less than one percent. This project was a collaboration involving many people. We thank Talitha Chairunissa, Amri Ilmma, Chaeruddin Kodir, He Yang and Gabriel Zucker for their excellent research assistance, and Scott Guggenheim for helpful comments. We thank Mitra Samya, the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics, the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), and SurveyMeter for their cooperation implementing the project. Most of all, we thank Jurist Tan for her truly exceptional work leading the field implementation. This project was financially supported by AusAID through a World Bank trust fund, by 3ie (OW3.1055), and by the NIH (P01 HD061315). All views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, TNP2K, Mitra Samya, Depsos, or the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics. Notes: Each column shows an OLS regression of benefit receipt or benefit targeting on elite status, elected status, log per capita consumption, urban status, and interaction terms. Stratum fixed effects are included in all regressions. Standard errors clustered at the village level are listed in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 Notes: Each column shows an OLS regression of benefit receipt or benefit targeting on elite status. Stratum fixed effects are included in all regressions Standard errors clustered at the village level are listed in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 Notes: See Appendix Table 8 for table description. An F-test on the difference between the elite related coefficient in Panel A,