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Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Development: Evidence from India

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  • GULZAR, SAAD
  • PASQUALE, BENJAMIN J.

Abstract

When do politicians prompt bureaucrats to provide effective services? Leveraging the uneven overlap of jurisdictions in India, we compare bureaucrats supervised by a single political principal with those supervised by multiple politicians. With an original dataset of nearly half a million villages, we find that implementation of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the largest employment program in the world, is substantially better where bureaucrats answer to a single politician. Regression discontinuity estimates help increase confidence that this result is causal. Our findings suggest that politicians face strong incentives to motivate bureaucrats as long as they internalize the benefits from doing so. In contrast to a large literature on the deleterious effects of political interventions, our results show that political influence may be more favorable to development than is commonly assumed.

Suggested Citation

  • Gulzar, Saad & Pasquale, Benjamin J., 2017. "Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Development: Evidence from India," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 111(1), pages 162-183, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:111:y:2017:i:01:p:162-183_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Danielle Resnick, 2022. "Does Accountability Undermine Service Delivery? The Impact of Devolving Agriculture in Ghana," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(2), pages 1003-1029, April.
    2. Chitra Jogani, 2022. "Effect of Political Quotas on Attributes of Political Candidates and Provision of Public Goods," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 267-316, April.
    3. Callen, Michael & Gulzar, Saad & Hasanain, Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2020. "Data and policy decisions: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Robin Burgess & Arunish Chawla & Guo Xu, 2020. "The Glittering Prizes: Career Incentives and Bureaucrat Performance," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 626-655.
    5. Anders Kjelsrud & Kristin Vikan Sjurgard, 2022. "Public Work and Private Violence," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(9), pages 1791-1806, September.
    6. Kalaj, Jozefina & Rogger, Daniel & Somani, Ravi, 2022. "Bureaucrat time-use: Evidence from a survey experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    7. Klonner, Stefan & Oldiges, Christian, 2022. "The welfare effects of India’s rural employment guarantee," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    8. Esteban Muñoz-Sobrado & Amedeo Piolatto & Antoine Zerbini & Federica Braccioli, 2024. "The Taxing Challenges of the State: Unveiling the Role of Fiscal & Administrative Capacity in Development," Working Papers 1432, Barcelona School of Economics.
    9. Dasgupta, Aditya & Kapur, Devesh, 2021. "The Political Economy of Bureaucratic Overload: Evidence from Rural Development Officials in India," SocArXiv 2qvwb, Center for Open Science.
    10. Callen, Michael, 2020. "Data and policy decisions: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," CEPR Discussion Papers 15169, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Das, Upasak & Maiorano, Diego, 2019. "Post-clientelistic initiatives in a patronage democracy: The distributive politics of India’s MGNREGA," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 239-252.
    12. Callen, Michael & Gulzar, Saad & Hasanain, Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2023. "The political economy of public sector absence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    13. Alkon, Meir, 2018. "Do special economic zones induce developmental spillovers? Evidence from India’s states," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 396-409.
    14. Jain, Chandan & Kashyap, Shagun & Lahoti, Rahul & Sahoo, Soham, 2022. "Do Educated Leaders Affect Economic Development? Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 15278, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. M. Rodwan Abouharb & David Cingranelli & Mikhail Filippov, 2019. "Too Many Cooks: Multiple International Principals Can Spoil the Quality of Governance," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-22, May.
    16. Indrajit Roy, 2019. "Class Politics and Social Protection: A Comparative Analysis of Local Governments in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 14(2), pages 121-150, August.
    17. Marcesse, Thibaud, 2018. "Public Policy Reform and Informal Institutions: The Political Articulation of the Demand for Work in Rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 284-296.
    18. Stommes, Drew & Aronow, P. M. & Sävje, Fredrik, 2023. "On the Reliability of Published Findings Using the Regression Discontinuity Design in Political Science," I4R Discussion Paper Series 22, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    19. Jain, Chandan & Kashyap, Shagun & Lahoti, Rahul & Sahoo, Soham, 2023. "The impact of educated leaders on economic development: Evidence from India," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 1068-1093.
    20. Agnihotri, Anustubh, 2022. "Transfer preferences of bureaucrats and spatial disparities in local state presence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    21. Rikhil R. Bhavnani & Alexander Lee, 2021. "Does Affirmative Action Worsen Bureaucratic Performance? Evidence from the Indian Administrative Service," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 5-20, January.
    22. Chaudhary, Latika & Iyer, Lakshmi, 2024. "The Importance of Being Local? Administrative Decentralization and Human Development," IZA Discussion Papers 17053, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. William Ascher, 2021. "Coping with intelligence deficits in poverty-alleviation policies in low-income countries," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(2), pages 345-370, June.
    24. Sarah Brierley, 2020. "Unprincipled Principals: Co‐opted Bureaucrats and Corruption in Ghana," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 209-222, April.
    25. Caesar Marga Putri & Josep Maria Argilés-Bosch & Diego Ravenda, 2023. "Thirty Years of Village Corruption Research: Accounting and Smart Villages for Village Sustainability as Future Research Direction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-19, June.

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