IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/soudev/v11y2016i3p261-275.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Economy of Intergovernmental Transfers—Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

Author

Listed:
  • Nakul Kumar

Abstract

India’s National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF) is a discretionary federal grant that supports the sub-national governments with their disaster relief efforts. Evidence suggests that discretionary intergovernmental transfers in countries with national coalition governments contribute to distributive politics. Coalition formateur(s) use these transfers to form or hold together fractious coalitions. We use data on the NCCF from 1997 to 2013 for 23 Indian states to test for distributive politics. Our results show no evidence of NCCF contributing to distributive politics. We argue instead that the NCCF contributes to a different political phenomenon— tactical redistribution .

Suggested Citation

  • Nakul Kumar, 2016. "The Political Economy of Intergovernmental Transfers—Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 11(3), pages 261-275, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:11:y:2016:i:3:p:261-275
    DOI: 10.1177/0973174116666441
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0973174116666441
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0973174116666441?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Healy, Andrew & Malhotra, Neil, 2009. "Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(3), pages 387-406, August.
    2. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2002. "The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1415-1451.
    3. Lindbeck, Assar & Weibull, Jorgen W., 1993. "A model of political equilibrium in a representative democracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 195-209, June.
    4. Russell Sobel & Peter Leeson, 2006. "Government's response to Hurricane Katrina: A public choice analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 55-73, April.
    5. Thomas Husted & David Nickerson, 2014. "Political Economy of Presidential Disaster Declarations and Federal Disaster Assistance," Public Finance Review, , vol. 42(1), pages 35-57, January.
    6. Dahlberg, Matz & Johansson, Eva, 2002. "On the Vote-Purchasing Behavior of Incumbent Governments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 27-40, March.
    7. Matthew E. Kahn, 2005. "The Death Toll from Natural Disasters: The Role of Income, Geography, and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 271-284, May.
    8. Khemani, Stuti, 2003. "Partisan politics and intergovernmental transfers in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3016, The World Bank.
    9. Banful, Afua Branoah, 2011. "Do formula-based intergovernmental transfer mechanisms eliminate politically motivated targeting? Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 380-390, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael M. Bechtel & Jens Hainmueller, 2011. "How Lasting Is Voter Gratitude? An Analysis of the Short‐ and Long‐Term Electoral Returns to Beneficial Policy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 852-868, October.
    2. Meri Davlasheridze & Qing Miao, 2021. "Does post-disaster aid promote community resilience? Evidence from federal disaster programs," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 109(1), pages 63-88, October.
    3. Meri Davlasheridze & Qing Miao, 2019. "Does Governmental Assistance Affect Private Decisions to Insure? An Empirical Analysis of Flood Insurance Purchases," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 95(1), pages 124-145.
    4. Davlasheridze, Meri & Fisher-Vanden, Karen & Allen Klaiber, H., 2017. "The effects of adaptation measures on hurricane induced property losses: Which FEMA investments have the highest returns?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 93-114.
    5. Eduardo Cavallo & Ilan Noy, 2009. "The Economics of Natural Disasters: A Survey," Research Department Publications 4649, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    6. Markus Reischmann, 2016. "Empirical Studies on Public Debt and Fiscal Transfers," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 63.
    7. Magontier, Pierre, 2020. "Does media coverage affect governments' preparation for natural disasters?," MPRA Paper 101291, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Rahman, Muhammad Habibur & Anbarci, Nejat & Ulubaşoğlu, Mehmet A., 2022. "“Storm autocracies”: Islands as natural experiments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    9. Banful, Afua Branoah, 2011. "Old Problems in the New Solutions? Politically Motivated Allocation of Program Benefits and the "New" Fertilizer Subsidies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1166-1176, July.
    10. Robert G. Blanton & Dursun Peksen, 2017. "Dying for Globalization? The Impact of Economic Globalization on Industrial Accidents," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1487-1502, November.
    11. Chun Ping Chang & Aziz N Berdiev, 2013. "Natural Disasters, Political Risk and Insurance Market Development," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 38(3), pages 406-448, July.
    12. Coyne, Christopher J., 2011. "Constitutions and crisis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 351-357.
    13. Ferreira, Susana, 2024. "Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change: Economic Impacts and Adaptation Policies," IZA Discussion Papers 16715, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Gonschorek, Gerrit J. & Schulze, Günther G. & Sjahrir, Bambang Suharnoko, 2018. "To the ones in need or the ones you need? The political economy of central discretionary grants − empirical evidence from Indonesia," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 240-260.
    15. Jean-Francois Maystadt & Muhammad Kabir Salihu, 2015. "National or political cake?," Working Papers 100756558, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    16. Noy, Ilan, 2015. "Natural disasters and climate change in the Pacific island countries: New non-monetary measurements of impacts," Working Paper Series 19267, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    17. Kauder, Björn & Potrafke, Niklas & Reischmann, Markus, 2016. "Do politicians reward core supporters? Evidence from a discretionary grant program," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 39-56.
    18. Fabio Fiorillo & Elvina Merkaj, 2021. "A comprehensive approach to intergovernmental grants’ tactical allocation. Theory and estimation guidelines," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(4), pages 995-1013, August.
    19. Noy, Ilan, 2015. "Natural disasters and climate change in the Pacific island countries: New non-monetary measurements of impacts," Working Paper Series 4200, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    20. Verena Kroth & Valentino Larcinese & Joachim Wehner, 2016. "A Better Life for All? Democratization and Electrification in Post-Apartheid South Africa," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 60, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:11:y:2016:i:3:p:261-275. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.