Defector Politicians and Economic Growth: Evidence from India

Political defectors refer to politicians who switch parties. This paper uses a close-election regression discontinuity (RD) model to estimate the impact of electing political defectors to Indian state legislatures on economic growth (proxied by night-light growth) in their electoral constituencies. I estimate that the election of a defector from the governing party causes a 0.13–0.48 percentage point (2–7.5%) increase in annual GDP growth in their constituency. Further, I find strong evidence that this increased growth is not driven by time-invariant ways in which defectors differ from non-defectors. Therefore, defectors improve economic outcomes in their constituencies either because (1) Defection provides politicians with resources and influence (for example in the form of ministerial positions) that they use to benefit their constituents, or because (2) Parties recruit politicians with increasing political influence, status or competence for defection. The evidence on which of these two channels explains the effect is inconclusive.