IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6154.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Religious Minorities and Provision of Public Goods: Evidence from Rural West Bengal

Author

Listed:
  • Kumar Das, Pranab

    (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta)

  • Kar, Saibal

    (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta)

  • Kayal, Madhumanti

    (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta)

Abstract

Religious and ethnic minorities across the world face partisan treatment with regard to provision of public goods, either as outcome of discriminatory practices or due to historical antecedents, such as the caste and religious divides in India. In several districts of West Bengal in India concentration of religious minorities, namely Muslims is higher than state and country-level averages. We measures access to public goods in rural West Bengal for different strata of minority concentration. Using Least Square, Generalized Linear Models and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, we find evidence of strong horizontal inequality against Muslims in terms of access to public goods. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition shows that Muslims in larger concentrations face poorer access to infrastructure, health and transport facilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Kumar Das, Pranab & Kar, Saibal & Kayal, Madhumanti, 2011. "Religious Minorities and Provision of Public Goods: Evidence from Rural West Bengal," IZA Discussion Papers 6154, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6154
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6154.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcelin Joanis, 2011. "The road to power: partisan loyalty and the centralized provision of local infrastructure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 117-143, January.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2005. "Why Political Reservations?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 668-678, 04/05.
    3. Kanbur, Ravi & Rajaram, Prem Kumar & Varshney, Ashutosh, 2011. "Ethnic Diversity and Ethnic Strife. An Interdisciplinary Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 147-158, February.
    4. Abhijit Banerjee & Lakshmi Iyer & Rohini Somanathan, 2005. "History, Social Divisions, and Public Goods in Rural India," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 639-647, 04/05.
    5. Chin, Aimee & Prakash, Nishith, 2011. "The redistributive effects of political reservation for minorities: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 265-277, November.
    6. Banerjee, Abhijit & Somanathan, Rohini, 2007. "The political economy of public goods: Some evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 287-314, March.
    7. Kijima, Yoko, 2006. "Caste and Tribe Inequality: Evidence from India, 1983-1999," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 369-404, January.
    8. Arai, Mahmood & Karlsson, Jonas & Lundholm, Michael, 2008. "On Fragile Grounds: A Replication of Are Muslim Immigrants Different in Terms of Cultural Integration? Technical Documentation," Research Papers in Economics 2009:6, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    9. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284.
    10. Sharif, Iffath A., 2011. "Does political competition lessen ethnic discrimination? Evidence from Sri Lanka," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 277-289, March.
    11. Christine Moser, 2008. "Poverty Reduction, Patronage, or Vote Buying? The Allocation of Public Goods and the 2001 Election in Madagascar," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(1), pages 137-162, October.
    12. Alberto Bisin & Eleonora Patacchini & Thierry Verdier & Yves Zenou, 2008. "Are Muslim Immigrants Different in Terms of Cultural Integration?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 445-456, 04-05.
    13. Zhang, Xiaobo & Fan, Shenggen & Zhang, Linxiu & Huang, Jikun, 2004. "Local governance and public goods provision in rural China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2857-2871, December.
    14. David M. Brasington, 2003. "Snobbery, Racism, or Mutual Distaste: What Promotes and Hinders Cooperation in Local Public-Good Provision?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 874-883, November.
    15. Rohini Pande, 2003. "Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1132-1151, September.
    16. Constant, Amelie F. & Gataullina, Liliya & Zimmermann, Klaus F. & Zimmermann, Laura V, 2006. "Clash of Cultures: Muslims and Christians in the Ethnosizing Process," IZA Discussion Papers 2350, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Crost, Benjamin & Kambhampati, Uma S., 2010. "Political Market Characteristics and the Provision of Educational Infrastructure in North India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 195-204, February.
    18. Miguel, Edward & Gugerty, Mary Kay, 2005. "Ethnic diversity, social sanctions, and public goods in Kenya," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2325-2368, December.
    19. Mahmood Arai & Jonas Karlsson & Michael Lundholm, 2011. "On Fragile Grounds: A Replication Of “Are Muslim Immigrants Different In Terms Of Cultural Integration?”," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(5), pages 1002-1011, October.
    20. Bardhan Pranab K. & Mookherjee Dilip & Parra Torrado Monica, 2010. "Impact of Political Reservations in West Bengal Local Governments on Anti-Poverty Targeting," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-38, January.
    21. George Akerlof, 1976. "The Economics of Caste and of the Rat Race and Other Woeful Tales," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 599-617.
    22. Morris, Cynthia Taft & Adelman, Irma, 1980. "The religious factor in economic development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 8(7-8), pages 491-501.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Fonseca, Miguel A. & Ghosh, Sudeep & Marjit, Sugata, 2016. "Religious fragmentation, social identity and cooperation: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 265-279.
    2. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clots-Figueras, Irma & Cassan, Guilhem & Iyer, Lakshmi, 2014. "Religion, politician identity and development outcomes: Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 4-17.
    3. Surajeet Chakravarty & Miguel A Fonseca & Sudeep Ghosh & Sugata Marjit, 2016. "Religious Fragmentation, Social Identity and Conflict: Evidence from an Artefactual Field Experiment in India," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clots-Figueras, Irma & Iyer, Lakshmi, 2023. "Ethnic conflict : the role of ethnic representation," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1463, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Jan Alam, 2020. "7P’s of life-satisfaction: a social constructionist model for the life satisfaction of religious minority groups in Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan)," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, December.
    6. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Fonseca, Miguel A. & Ghosh, Sudeep & Kumar, Pradeep & Marjit, Sugata, 2019. "Religious fragmentation, social identity and other-regarding preferences: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment in India," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elizabeth Kaletski & Nishith Prakash, 2017. "Can Elected Minority Representatives Affect Health Worker Visits? Evidence from India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 67-102, February.
    2. Elizabeth Kaletski & Nishith Prakash, 2016. "Affirmative action policy in developing countries: Lessons learned and a way forward," WIDER Working Paper Series 052, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Chin, Aimee & Prakash, Nishith, 2011. "The redistributive effects of political reservation for minorities: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 265-277, November.
    4. Munshi, K., 2017. "Caste and the Indian Economy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1759, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Kaletski, Elizabeth & Prakash, Nishith, 2016. "Does Political Reservation for Minorities Affect Child Labor? Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 50-69.
    6. Das, Sabyasachi & Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Saroy, Rajas, 2023. "Does affirmative action in politics hinder performance? Evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 370-405.
    7. Elizabeth Kaletski & Nishith Prakash, 2016. "Affirmative action policy in developing countries: Lessons learned and a way forward," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-52, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Sabyasachi Das & Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay & Rajas Saroy, 2018. "Does Affirmative Action in Politics Hinder Performance? Evidence from India," Working Papers 1007, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    9. Guilhem Cassan & Lore Vandewalle, 2017. "Identities and Public Policies: Unintended Effects of Political Reservations for Women in India," IHEID Working Papers 18-2017, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    10. Teferi Mergo & Alain-Desire Nimubona & Horatiu Rus, 2019. "Political Representation and the Provision of Public Goods: Theory and Evidence from Ethiopia," Working Papers 1901, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2019.
    11. Cassan, Guilhem & Vandewalle, Lore, 2021. "Identities and public policies: Unexpected effects of political reservations for women in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    12. Nishant Chadha & Bharti Nandwani, 2017. "Ethnic fragmentation and school provision in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-176, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Nishant Chadha & Bharti Nandwani, 2017. "Ethnic fragmentation and school provision in India," WIDER Working Paper Series 176, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Mori, Yuko & Kurosaki, Takashi, 2013. "Does Political Reservation Affect Voting Behavior? Empirical Evidence from India," CEI Working Paper Series 2012-09, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    15. He, Quqiong & Pan, Ying & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2018. "Lineage-based heterogeneity and cooperative behavior in rural China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 248-269.
    16. Banerjee, Abhijit V. & Pande, Rohini, 2007. "Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption," Working Paper Series rwp07-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    17. Catherine Bros, 2009. "Social Fragmentation and Public Goods Revisiting the Olson's Effect in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 09058, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    18. Gisselquist, Rachel M. & Leiderer, Stefan & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2016. "Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Goods Provision in Zambia: Evidence of a Subnational “Diversity Dividend”," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 308-323.
    19. Ghosh, Sugata & Mitra, Anirban, 2022. "Ethnic identities, public spending and political regimes," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 256-279.
    20. Girard, Victoire, 2018. "Don’t Touch My Road. Evidence from India on Affirmative Action And Everyday Discrimination," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-13.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    religious minorities; public good; discrimination; welfare; West Bengal;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp6154. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.