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The Political Economy of Intergovernmental Transfers—Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief

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  • Nakul Kumar

Abstract

India’s National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF) is a discretionary federal grant that supports the sub-national governments with their disaster relief efforts. Evidence suggests that discretionary intergovernmental transfers in countries with national coalition governments contribute to distributive politics. Coalition formateur(s) use these transfers to form or hold together fractious coalitions. We use data on the NCCF from 1997 to 2013 for 23 Indian states to test for distributive politics. Our results show no evidence of NCCF contributing to distributive politics. We argue instead that the NCCF contributes to a different political phenomenon— tactical redistribution .

Suggested Citation

  • Nakul Kumar, 2016. "The Political Economy of Intergovernmental Transfers—Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 11(3), pages 261-275, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:11:y:2016:i:3:p:261-275
    DOI: 10.1177/0973174116666441
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