Parochial politics is typically associated with poor leadership and low levels of public good provision. This paper explores the possibility that community involvement in politics need not necessarily worsen governance and, indeed, can be efficiency-enhancing when the context is appropriate. Complementing the new literature on the role of community networks in solving market problems, we test the hypothesis that strong traditional social institutions can discipline the leaders they put forward, successfully substituting for secular political institutions when they are ineffective. Using new data on Indian local governments at the ward level over multiple terms, and exploiting the randomized election reservation system, we find that the presence of a numerically dominant sub-caste (caste equilibrium) is associated with the selection of leaders with superior observed characteristics and with greater public good provision. This improvement in leadership competence occurs without apparently diminishing leaders' responsiveness to their constituency.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
14335.
Length: Date of creation: Sep 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14335
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Francesco Caselli & Massimo Morelli, 2001.
"Bad Politicians,"
NBER Working Papers
8532, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Lori A. Beaman & Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo & Rohini Pande & Petia Topalova, 2008.
"Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?,"
NBER Working Papers
14198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Beaman, Lori & Chattopadhyay, Raghebendra & Duflo, Esther & Pande, Rohini & Topalova, Petia, 2008.
"Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?,"
Working Paper Series
rwp08-037, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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