Do criminally accused politicians affect economic outcomes? Evidence from India

Abstract

We study the causal impact of electing criminally accused politicians to state legislative assemblies in India on the subsequent economic performance of their constituencies. Using data on the criminal background of candidates running for state assembly elections and a constituency-level measure of economic activity proxied by intensity of night-time lights, we employ a regression discontinuity design that controls for unobserved heterogeneity across constituencies and find 22-percentage point lower yearly growth in the intensity of night-time lights arising from the election of a criminally accused politician. These effects are driven by serious, financial and the number of criminal charges and appear to be concentrated in the less developed and more corrupt Indian states. Similar findings emerge for the provision of public goods using data on India's major rural roads construction program.

Costs and benefits of rural-urban migration: Evidence from India

“…Poverty lines First, we use poverty lines from (Planning Commission, 2009) Crime Second, we use information on total crime per 1000 inhabitants in the state of destination in 2009 from the National Crime Records Bureau. We thank Nishith Prakash for sharing the data (Prakash et al, 2014).…”

Women legislators and economic performance

“…It seems plausible that legislators with a criminal record are more likely to practise corruption, to have priorities other than economic development, and, possibly, are less likely to provide a stable business environment. A recent paper, using the same criminal charges variable for India, studies the impact of this characteristic on economic activity proxied by luminosity, but without paying any attention to gender (Prakash et al 2014). These authors find that criminality is associated with a 22 percentage point penalty in luminosity growth.…”

“…Overall, the evidence suggests that women legislators are less likely than men to exploit their office for personal financial gain. It establishes corruption as a likely contributor to the economic advantage of women legislators, given evidence that lower corruption is conducive to economic growth (Dollar et al 2001;Mauro 1995;Prakash et al 2014;Swamy et al 2001). 20…”

“…Women have been shown to favour public goods investments, such as in education and health (Bhalotra and Clots-Figueras 2014;Clots-Figueras 2012), which have only very long-term returns. However, women legislators might promote growth if they are less corrupt (Beaman et al 2006;Brollo and Troiano 2014), with visible impacts even in the short term (Dollar et al 2001;Swamy et al 2001;Mauro 1995;Prakash et al 2014). Or, if women who select into public office have a stronger sense of public mission and are more motivated to perform (perhaps to meet higher expectations), they may be more effective at managing economic growth.…”

Effect of Political Quotas on Candidate Attributes and the Provision of Public Goods

“…As mentioned in (Besley, 2005;Akerlof and Kranton, 2000) a politician has many characteristics that identify him and determine his quality. Characteristics such as criminality and level of education of politicians has also been observed to affect development (Prakash et al, 2014;Chemin, 2012;Gehring et al, 2015;Besley et al, 2011;Lahoti and Sahoo, 2017). Character of the politician is important for political selection of the candidate as well (Besley et al, 2005;Bernheim and Kartik, 2014).…”