India's Scheduled Areas, home to 100 million citizens and featuring reserved political offices for historically disadvantaged Scheduled Tribes, are examined systematically through a new village dataset. This study evaluates the effects on key pro-poor programs like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Findings:

• Overall Development Impact: Reservation policies do not worsen outcomes overall.
• Targeted Minority Benefits: Significant gains for Scheduled Tribes in program access and political representation.
• Redistribution Effects: These improvements redistribute benefits, sometimes affecting relatively privileged groups more than others.

Broader Implications:

The findings suggest that reservation mechanisms better align economic benefits with population distribution across all targeted groups. This challenges the skeptical view that such affirmative action inherently harms development.