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Political Selection and the Quality ofGovernment: Evidence from South India

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Author Info
Timothy Besley
Rohini Pande
Vijayendra Rao

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Abstract

This paper uses household data from India to examine the economic and socialstatus of village politicians, and how individual and village characteristics a®ectpolitician behavior while in o±ce. Education increases the chances of selectionto public o±ce and reduces the odds that a politician uses political poweropportunistically. In contrast, land ownership and political connections enableselection but do not a®ect politician opportunism. At the village level, changesin the identity of the politically dominant group alters the group allocation ofresources but not politician opportunism. Improved information °ows in thevillage, however, reduce opportunism and improve resource allocation.

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Paper provided by Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE in its series STICERD - Development Economics Papers with number 44.

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Date of creation: Aug 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cep:stidep:44

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  1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-79, April.
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  2. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2006. "Businessman Candidates," Working Papers w0067, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR). [Downloadable!]
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  3. Panu Poutvaara & Tuomas Takalo, 2003. "Candidate Quality," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Dee, Thomas S., 2004. "Are there civic returns to education?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1697-1720, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2005. "Do Leaders Matter? National Leadership and Growth Since World War II," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(3), pages 835-864, August.
  6. Gehlbach, Scott & Sonin, Konstantin, 2004. "Businessman Candidates: Special-Interest Politics in Weakly Institutionalized Environments," CEPR Discussion Papers 4822, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Osborne, Martin J & Slivinski, Al, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Caselli, Francesco & Morelli, Massimo, 2004. "Bad politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 759-782, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Milligan, Kevin & Moretti, Enrico & Oreopoulos, Philip, 2004. "Does education improve citizenship? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1667-1695, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. David S. Lee & Enrico Moretti & Matthew J. Butler, 2004. "Do Voters Affect Or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U. S. House," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 119(3), pages 807-859, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo, 2001. "Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a India-Wide Randomized Policy Experiment," NBER Working Papers 8615, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Coate, Stephen & Morris, Stephen, 1995. "On the Form of Transfers in Special Interests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1210-35, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Timothy Besley & Rohini Pande & Vijayendra Rao, 2005. "Participatory Democracy in Action: Survey Evidence from South India," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 648-657, 04/05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Dr. Peter Kenning & Hilke Plassmann, 2004. "NeuroEconomics," Experimental 0412005, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  15. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114, February.
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  16. Faguet, Jean-Paul, 2001. "Does decentralization increase responsiveness to local needs? - evidence from Bolivia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2516, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Pande, Rohini, 2007. "Understanding Political Corruption in Low Income Countries," Working Paper Series rwp07-020, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. [Downloadable!]
  2. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2009. "Motivating Politicians: The Impacts of Monetary Incentives on Quality and Performance," NBER Working Papers 14906, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Lori Beaman, 2007. "Women Politicians, Gender Bias, and Policy-making in Rural India," Working Papers id:835, esocialsciences.com. [Downloadable!]
  4. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2007. "Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil’s Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 2836, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Moser, Christoph / Dreher, Axel, 2007. "Do Markets Care about Central Bank Governor Changes? Evidence from Emerging Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Pedro Dal Bó & Andrew Foster & Louis Putterman, 2008. "Institutions and Behavior: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Democracy," NBER Working Papers 13999, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Singh, Nirvikar, 2007. "Fiscal Federalism and Decentralization in India," MPRA Paper 1447, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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