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The Allocation of Publicly-Provided Goods to Rural Households in India: On Some Consequences of Caste, Religion and Democracy

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  • Roger R. Betancourt

    (Department of Economics, University of Maryland)

  • Suzanne Gleason

    (Massachussetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

Abstract

In this study we address the following question-- what determines the allocation of publicly-provided goods to rural households in India? Our paper is empirically driven but we draw on the characteristics of India's institutional structure and the implications of existing literature for framing the answer to this question. We confront the main empirical implications drawn from this frame of reference with a unique data set for India which brings together the widely used district data with a recently constructed data set on political participation. Our empirical results identify four important determinants of the outcomes of this allocation process: formal and informal characteristics of each state allocation mechanism, selectivity in the allocations against Muslims and scheduled castes; bureaucratic rules and behavior; and characteristics of the electoral participation process.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger R. Betancourt & Suzanne Gleason, 1999. "The Allocation of Publicly-Provided Goods to Rural Households in India: On Some Consequences of Caste, Religion and Democracy," Electronic Working Papers 99-004, University of Maryland, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:umd:umdeco:99-004
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    Cited by:

    1. Patricia Justino, 2004. "Redistribution, Inequality And Political Conflict," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2004 143, Royal Economic Society.
    2. Joan Costa-Font & Divya Parmar, 2016. "Political agency and public healthcare: Evidence from India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-135, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Pushkar, 2012. "Democracy and Infant Mortality in India’s ‘Mini-democracies’: A Preliminary Theoretical Inquiry and Analysis," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 7(2), pages 109-137, October.
    4. Tugrul Gurgur, 2016. "Voice, exit and local capture in public provision of private goods," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 397-424, November.
    5. Sarmistha Pal & Sugata Ghosh, 2008. "The Elite and the Marginalised: an Analysis of Public Spending on Mass Education in the Indian States," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 08-15, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
    6. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Arindam Nandi & Ashvin Ashok & Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2013. "The Socioeconomic and Institutional Determinants of Participation in India’s Health Insurance Scheme for the Poor," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(6), pages 1-13, June.
    8. M. Niaz Asadullah & Uma Kambhampati & Florencia Lopez Boo, 2014. "Social divisions in school participation and attainment in India: 1983–2004," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 38(4), pages 869-893.
    9. Sarmistha Pal & Sugata Ghosh, 2006. "Elite Dominance and Under-investment in Mass Education: Disparity in the Social Development of the Indian States, 1960-92," Economics and Finance Discussion Papers 06-14, Economics and Finance Section, School of Social Sciences, Brunel University.
    10. Dugoua, Eugenie & Liu, Ruinan & Urpelainen, Johannes, 2017. "Geographic and socio-economic barriers to rural electrification: New evidence from Indian villages," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 278-287.
    11. Mwangi S. Kimenyi, 2006. "Ethnicity, Governance and the Provision of Public Goods," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(1), pages 62-99, April.
    12. Nisreen Salti & Jad Chaaban, 2012. "The political economy of attracting public funds: the case of Lebanon," International Journal of Development and Conflict, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 1250001-125.
    13. repec:pru:wpaper:18 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Shadowing Role of Redistributive Institutions in the Relationship Between Income Inequality and Redistribution," MPRA Paper 17772, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Subham Kailthya & Uma Kambhampati, 2016. "Political Economy of Healthcare Provision: Evidence from India," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2016-05, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    16. Joan Costa-Font & Divya Parmar, 2016. "Political agency and public healthcare: Evidence from India," WIDER Working Paper Series 135, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Kato, Atsushi & Fukumi, Atsushi, 2020. "Political economy of agricultural electricity tariffs: Rural politics of Indian States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    18. Foa, Roberto Stefan, 2022. "Decentralization, historical state capacity and public goods provision in Post-Soviet Russia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    19. Mani, Anandi & Mukand, Sharun, 2007. "Democracy, visibility and public good provision," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 506-529, July.
    20. Francesco Burchi & Karan Singh, 2020. "Women’s Political Representation and Educational Attainments: A District-level Analysis in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 15(1), pages 7-33, April.
    21. Dutta, Nabamita & Kar, Saibal, 2022. "Lockdown and Rural Joblessness in India: Gender Inequality in Employment?," IZA Discussion Papers 15270, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    22. R. Ramesh, 2021. "How Equal is Access to Public Services? The Impact of Sociodemographic Background on Public Service Delivery in Sri Lanka," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 37(1), pages 7-29, March.
    23. Crost, Benjamin & Kambhampati, Uma S., 2010. "Political Market Characteristics and the Provision of Educational Infrastructure in North India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 195-204, February.
    24. Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak & Andrew Sunil Rajkumar & Maureen Cropper, 2011. "The Political Economy of Health Services Provision in Brazil," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 723-751.
    25. Bilkis Vissandjée & Shelly Abdool & Alisha Apale & Sophie Dupéré, 2006. "Women's Political Participation in Rural India," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 13(3), pages 425-450, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distribution Sector; Allocation of Publicly-provided Goods; Tiebout; Collective Choice; Fiscal Decentralization in Developing Countries; Rural India; Empirical Analysis of Institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

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