IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/20925.html

Why do Governments Overpromise and Underdeliver? Evidence from India's National Clean Air Programme

Author

Listed:
  • Dhinakar Bala, Archana
  • Mattsson, Martin
  • Vyas, Sangita

Abstract

What are the political consequences of setting ambitious policy targets, but then failing to meet them? We study this question in the context of India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), a flagship policy designed to cut air pollution by 40% in 131 cities and address a crisis that causes 1.2 million deaths annually. Using multiple difference-in-differences approaches, we demonstrate that the program had no effect on air pollution. In a survey experiment with residents of NCAP cities, we show that informing citizens about NCAP boosted their approval of the government’s air pollution policy. Surprisingly, this effect persisted even when respondents were told the program had no impact — revealing a clear political benefit from the ambitious announcement, and minimal cost for the implementation failure. This incentive structure is consistent with the lack of political commitment to implementing NCAP, which we document, and is a likely explanation for the program’s failure.

Suggested Citation

  • Dhinakar Bala, Archana & Mattsson, Martin & Vyas, Sangita, 2025. "Why do Governments Overpromise and Underdeliver? Evidence from India's National Clean Air Programme," CEPR Discussion Papers 20925, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20925
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP20925
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cpr:ceprdp:20925. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CEPR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cepr.org/ .

    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.