IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpot/0512002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gains from a Redrawing of Political Boundaries: Evidence from State Reorganization in India

Author

Listed:
  • Rajashri Chakrabarti

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of a redrawing of political boundaries on voting patterns. It investigates whether secession of states leads to gains in terms of better conformity of the electorate's political preferences with those of the elected representatives. We study these issues in the context of reorganization of states in India. Madhya Pradesh, the biggest state in India before the reorganization, was subdivided into Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2000, the latter accounting for less than one-fourth of the electorate of undivided Madhya Pradesh. Using socio-economic composition and traditional voting patterns, we argue that there were differences in political preferences between Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. However, in electoral democracies, the amount of transfers that a constituency gets depends crucially on whether the local representative belongs to the ruling party. Under these circumstances, we show in a theoretical context that when it is part of the same state, the smaller region would vote strategically to elect representatives with preferences more closely aligned to those of the bigger region. Once it constitutes a separate state however, this motive would no longer operate. Exploiting detailed data on state elections in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 1993, 1998 and 2003 and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, we show that these predictions are validated empirically - there is a significant divergence in voting behavior between the two regions in 2003 compared to the pre-reorganization period.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajashri Chakrabarti, 2005. "Gains from a Redrawing of Political Boundaries: Evidence from State Reorganization in India," Others 0512002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpot:0512002
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 48
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/othr/papers/0512/0512002.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    2. Alberto Porto & Pablo Sanguinetti, 2001. "Political Determinants of Intergovernmental Grants: Evidence From Argentina," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 237-256, November.
    3. Goyal, Sanjeev & Staal, Klaas, 2004. "The political economy of regionalism," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 563-593, June.
    4. Bolton, Patrick & Roland, Gerard & Spolaore, Enrico, 1996. "Economic theories of the break-up and integration of nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 697-705, April.
    5. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    6. Stephen Ansolabehere & James M. Snyder, 2006. "Party Control of State Government and the Distribution of Public Expenditures," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 108(4), pages 547-569, December.
    7. Rozevitch, Shimon & Weiss, Avi, 1993. "Beneficiaries from Federal Transfers to Municipalities: The Case of Israel," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 335-346, August.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & Caroline Hoxby, 2004. "Political Jurisdictions in Heterogeneous Communities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 348-396, April.
    9. Khemani, Stuti, 2003. "Partisan politics and intergovernmental transfers in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3016, The World Bank.
    10. Moulton, Brent R., 1986. "Random group effects and the precision of regression estimates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 385-397, August.
    11. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 1995. "Togetheror separately? Issues on the costs and benefits of political and fiscal unions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 751-758, April.
    12. Arulampalam, Wiji & Dasgupta, Sugato & Dhillon, Amrita & Dutta, Bhaskar, 2009. "Electoral goals and center-state transfers: A theoretical model and empirical evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 103-119, January.
    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. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2006. "Conflict, defense spending, and the number of nations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 91-120, January.
    3. Dur, Robert & Staal, Klaas, 2008. "Local public good provision, municipal consolidation, and national transfers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 160-173, March.
    4. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2015. "Political economy of fiscal unions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 147-157.
    5. Dokow, Elad & Luque, Jaime, 2019. "Provision of local public goods in mixed income communities," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Enrico Spolaore, 2016. "The economics of political borders," Chapters, in: Eugene Kontorovich & Francesco Parisi (ed.), Economic Analysis of International Law, chapter 1, pages 11-43, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Joan Esteban & Sabine Flamand & Massimo Morelli & Dominic Rohner, 2018. "A Dynamic Theory of Secession," CESifo Working Paper Series 7257, CESifo.
    8. Niklas Hanes & Magnus Wikström & Erik Wångmar, 2012. "Municipal Preferences for State-imposed Amalgamations: An Empirical Study Based on the Swedish Municipal Reform of 1952," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(12), pages 2733-2750, September.
    9. Brink , Anna, 2003. "Unequal Provision of Local Public Services under the Threat of Secession," Working Papers in Economics 103, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Brink, Anna, 2001. "The Break-Up of Municipalities –Voting Behavior in Local Referenda," Working Papers in Economics 58, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised 05 Sep 2003.
    11. Esteban, Joan & Flamand, Sabine & Morelli, Massimo & Rohner, Dominic, 2017. "The Survival and Demise of the State: A Dynamic Theory of Secessions," CEPR Discussion Papers 12398, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Enrico Spolaore, 2010. "Federalism, Regional Redistribution and Country Stability," Chapters, in: Núria Bosch & Marta Espasa & Albert Solé Ollé (ed.), The Political Economy of Inter-Regional Fiscal Flows, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Gregoire Rota Graziosi, 2003. "The theory of `Internal Exit', a comment on Buchanan and Faith (1987)," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 8(12), pages 1-6.
    14. Vanschoonbeek, Jakob, 2020. "Regional (in)stability in Europe a quantitative model of state fragmentation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 605-641.
    15. Enrico Spolaore, 2009. "National Borders, Conflict and Peace," CESifo Working Paper Series 2860, CESifo.
    16. Guido de Blasio & Alberto Dalmazzo & Monica Andini, 2013. "The Size of Political Jurisdictions: Evidence from a Fascist Consolidation," ERSA conference papers ersa13p276, European Regional Science Association.
    17. Janos Feidler & Klaas Staal, 2012. "Centralized and decentralized provision of public goods," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 73-93, March.
    18. Alesina, Alberto & Spolaore, Enrico, 2005. "War, peace, and the size of countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(7), pages 1333-1354, July.
    19. Tim Willems, 2014. "You Can Go Your Own Way: Explaining Partisan Support for Independence," Economics Series Working Papers 717, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. Andini, Monica & Dalmazzo, Alberto & de Blasio, Guido, 2017. "The size of political jurisdictions: A model with some evidence from a fascist consolidation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 889-909.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political boundaries; Voting; Redistribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    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:wpa:wuwpot:0512002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.