The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments / Kaivan Munshi, Mark Rosenzweig.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Munshi, Kaivan.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Rosenzweig, Mark.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w14335.

NBER working paper series no. w14335

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

The Efficacy of Parochial Politics

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2008.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2008.