IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/18633.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Fragmentation, Public Goods and Elections: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Gerard Padro i Miquel
  • Nancy Qian
  • Yang Yao

Abstract

This study examines how the economic effects of elections in rural China depend on voter heterogeneity, for which we proxy with religious fractionalization. We first document religious composition and the introduction of village-level elections for a nearly nationally representative sample of over two hundred villages. Then, we examine the interaction effect of heterogeneity and the introduction of elections on village-government provision of public goods. The interaction effect is negative. We interpret this as evidence that voter heterogeneity constrains the potential benefits of elections for public goods provision.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerard Padro i Miquel & Nancy Qian & Yang Yao, 2012. "Social Fragmentation, Public Goods and Elections: Evidence from China," NBER Working Papers 18633, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18633
    Note: DEV PE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18633.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin A. Olken & Monica Singhal, 2011. "Informal Taxation," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 1-28, October.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2000. "Participation in Heterogeneous Communities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 847-904.
    3. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    4. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson & Pierre Yared, 2008. "Income and Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 808-842, June.
    6. Renfu Luo & Linxiu Zhang & Jikun Huang & Scott Rozelle, 2010. "Village Elections, Public Goods Investments and Pork Barrel Politics, Chinese-style," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 662-684.
    7. Rachel Glennerster & Edward Miguel & Alexander D. Rothenberg, 2013. "Collective Action in Diverse Sierra Leone Communities," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 285-316, May.
    8. 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.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    10. 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.
    11. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    12. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2001. "Group Loyalty and the Taste for Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 500-528, June.
    13. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    14. Jean-Yves Duclos & Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2004. "Polarization: Concepts, Measurement, Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1737-1772, November.
    15. Boix, Carles & Posner, Daniel N., 1998. "Social Capital: Explaining Its Origins and Effects on Government Performance," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 686-693, October.
    16. Abhijit Banerjee & Dilip Mookherjee & Kaivan Munshi & Debraj Ray, 2001. "Inequality, Control Rights, and Rent Seeking: Sugar Cooperatives in Maharashtra," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(1), pages 138-190, February.
    17. Levy, Gilat & Bandiera, Oriana, 2010. "Diversity and the Power of the Elites in Democratic Societies: A model and a test," CEPR Discussion Papers 7985, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Habyarimana, James P. & Humphreys, Macartan & Posner, Daniel N. & Weinstein, Jeremy, 2006. "Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision? An Experimental Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 2272, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Guiso, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "People's opium? Religion and economic attitudes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 225-282, January.
    20. 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.
    21. Jacob L. Vigdor, 2004. "Community Composition and Collective Action: Analyzing Initial Mail Response to the 2000 Census," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 303-312, February.
    22. Khwaja, Asim Ijaz, 2009. "Can good projects succeed in bad communities?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 899-916, August.
    23. Cagla Okten & Una Okonkwo Osili, 2004. "Contributions in heterogeneous communities: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(4), pages 603-626, December.
    24. Habyarimana, James & Humphreys, Macartan & Posner, Daniel N. & Weinstein, Jeremy M., 2007. "Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(4), pages 709-725, November.
    25. Qian, Nancy & Padró i Miquel, Gerard & Martinez-Bravo, Monica & Yao, Yang, 2012. "The Effects of Democratization on Public Goods and Redistribution: Evidence from China," CEPR Discussion Papers 8975, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    26. Daniel M. Hungerman, 2007. "Diversity and Crowd-out: A Theory of Cold-Glow Giving," NBER Working Papers 13348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Alessandro Lizzeri & Nicola Persico, 2004. "Why did the Elites Extend the Suffrage? Democracy and the Scope of Government, with an Application to Britain's "Age of Reform"," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 707-765.
    28. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    29. Loren Brandt & Matthew A. Turner, 2007. "The Usefulness Of Imperfect Elections: The Case Of Village Elections In Rural China," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 453-480, November.
    30. Dayton-Johnson, Jeff, 2000. "Determinants of collective action on the local commons: a model with evidence from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 181-208, June.
    31. 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.
    32. Mu, Ren & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2011. "The role of elected and appointed village leaders in the allocation of public resources: Evidence from a low-income region in China," IFPRI discussion papers 1061, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    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. Quoc-Anh Do & Kieu-Trang Nguyen & Anh N. Tran, 2017. "One Mandarin Benefits the Whole Clan: Hometown Favoritism in an Authoritarian Regime," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 1-29, October.
    2. Qian, Nancy & Nunn, Nathan & Wen, Jaya, 2018. "Distrust and Political Turnover," CEPR Discussion Papers 12555, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Taisu Zhang & Xiaoxue Zhao, 2014. "Do Kinship Networks Strengthen Private Property? Evidence from Rural China," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(3), pages 505-540, September.
    4. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6ggbvnr6munghes9ocpp7f52o is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Samuel Bazzi & Matthew Gudgeon, "undated". "Local Government Proliferation, Diversity, and Conflict," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-271, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Caterina Gennaioli & Stefania Lovo, 2019. "Public Goods and Ethnic Diversity: Evidence from Deforestation in Indonesia," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(341), pages 32-66, January.
    7. Guojun He & Shaoda Wang, 2017. "Do College Graduates Serving as Village Officials Help Rural China?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 186-215, October.
    8. Pal, Sarmistha & Wahhaj, Zaki, 2017. "Fiscal decentralisation, local institutions and public good provision: evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 383-409.
    9. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/6ggbvnr6munghes9ocpp7f52o is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6ggbvnr6munghes9ocpp7f52o is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Monica Martinez-Bravo & Gerard Padró I Miquel & Nancy Qian & Yang Yao, 2017. "The Rise and Fall of Local Elections in China: Theory and Empirical Evidence on the Autocrat's Trade-off," NBER Working Papers 24032, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6ggbvnr6munghes9ocpp7f52o is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Neha Deopa & Daniele Rinaldo, 2023. "Sacred Ecology: The Environmental Impact of African Traditional Religions," Papers 2401.13673, arXiv.org.

    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. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    2. 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.
    3. Joseph Flavian Gomes, 2020. "The health costs of ethnic distance: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 195-226, June.
    4. Kotera, Go & Mizuno, Nobuhiro & Okada, Keisuke & Samreth, Sovannroeun, 2015. "Ethnic diversity, democracy, and health: Theory and evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 353-376.
    5. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    7. Andreoni, James & Payne, A. Abigail & Smith, Justin & Karp, David, 2016. "Diversity and donations: The effect of religious and ethnic diversity on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 47-58.
    8. Seidel, André, 2023. "A global map of amenities: Public goods, ethnic divisions and decentralization," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    9. Hémet, Camille & Wren-Lewis, Liam & Mahoney, Jessica, 2023. "Decentralization, Ethnic Fractionalization, and Public Services: Evidence from Kenyan Healthcare," SocArXiv em3js, Center for Open Science.
    10. Jones, Daniel B. & Zhan, Crystal, 2020. "Ethnic diversity and citizens’ support for local public good provision: Evidence from California parcel tax elections," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 108-130.
    11. Gisselquist, Rachel M. & Leiderer, Stefan & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2014. "Ethnic heterogeneity and public goods provision in Zambia: Further evidence of a subnational 'diversity dividend'," WIDER Working Paper Series 162, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Nikolaj A. Harmon, 2010. "The End of the European Welfare States? Migration, Ethnic Diversity and Public Goods," Working Papers 1277, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    13. Desmet, Klaus & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2012. "The political economy of linguistic cleavages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 322-338.
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11437 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Faillo, Marco & Grieco, Daniela & Zarri, Luca, 2012. "Cultural Diversity, Cooperation,and Anti-social Punishment," AICCON Working Papers 102-2012, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    16. Rachel M. Gisselquist & Stefan Leiderer & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, 2014. "Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Goods Provision in Zambia: Further Evidence of a Subnational 'Diversity Dividend'," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-162, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Chakravarty, Surajeet & Fonseca, Miguel A., 2014. "The effect of social fragmentation on public good provision: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-9.
    18. Hungerman, Daniel M., 2009. "Crowd-out and diversity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 729-740, June.
    19. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01c247ds102 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. B. Curtis Eaton & Mukesh Eswaran & Robert J. Oxoby, 2011. "‘Us’ and ‘Them’: the origin of identity, and its economic implications," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(3), pages 719-748, August.
    21. Schaeffer, Merlin, 2013. "Ethnic diversity, public goods provision and social cohesion: Lessons from an inconclusive literature," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Migration, Integration, Transnationalization SP VI 2013-103, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    22. Yann Algan & Camille Hémet & David D. Laitin, 2016. "The Social Effects of Ethnic Diversity at the Local Level: A Natural Experiment with Exogenous Residential Allocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 696-733.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • P35 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Public Finance

    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:nbr:nberwo:18633. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.