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Political Selection and the Qualilty of Government: Evidence from South India

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Author Info
Timothy Besley () (London School of Economics)
Rohini Pande () (Economic Growth Center, Yale University)
Vijayendra Rao () (World Bank)

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Abstract

This paper uses household data from India to examine the economic and social status of village politicians, and how individual and village characteristics affect politician behavior while in office. Education increases the chances of selection to public office and reduces the odds that a politician uses political power opportunistically. In contrast, land ownership and political connections enable selection but do not affect politician opportunism. At the village level, changes in the identity of the politically dominant group alters the group allocation of resources but not politician opportunism. Improved information flows in the village, however, reduce opportunism and improve resource allocation.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Economic Growth Center, Yale University in its series Working Papers with number 921.

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Length: 42 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2005
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Handle: RePEc:egc:wpaper:921

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Related research
Keywords: Development Political Economy Public Provision of Private Goods Decentralization

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
O20 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - General

References listed on IDEAS
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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 GmbH. [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. 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)
  12. 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)
  13. 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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  14. 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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Cited by:
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  1. Ferraz, Claudio & Finan, Frederico, 2008. "Motivating Politicians: The Impacts of Monetary Incentives on Quality and Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 3411, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  2. 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 GmbH. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Singh, Nirvikar, 2007. "Fiscal Federalism and Decentralization in India," MPRA Paper 1447, University Library of Munich, Germany. [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!]
  5. 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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