Tags:
Journalism of Courage
8226;What was the data?
Our main measures of politician corruption are from a survey in 102 UP jurisdictions which we conducted between July-November 2003. In each district we chose two politicians and two journalists..and asked them for assessments of economic gain enjoyed by the politician8230; We use four measures of economic gain: use of political office for personal gain, significant improvement in economic position, starting or expanding business and/or contracting activity and obtaining licenses for petrol pump or ration-shops8230;we verified responses via a second survey in 2004.
8226;What were the results?
As measured by politician8217;s ordinal corruption rank, pro-majority politicians in 1996 are more corrupt. Specifically, relative to 1980, in 1996 a candidate from the non-low caste party who wins from a high lower-caste-share jurisdiction has a significantly lower corruption rank. At the same time8230; a non-low caste candidate who wins from a low lower-caste-share jurisdiction is significantly more corrupt. We observe a symmetric effect for the low caste party winners: Under our assumptions8230;our results tell us that a low caste party winner from a high lower-caste-share jurisdiction is relatively more corrupt in 1996.
8226;What about overall corruption?
Finally 1996 has a significant negative coefficient8230;this coefficient picks up the change in corruption between 1980 and 1996 among low caste party winners in jurisdictions with zero lower-caste-share. The fact that it is negative is notable, since the perception is of an increasing trend in corruption, which would imply a positive pure time effect.
8226;Do ethnic blocs benefit materially?
It is often held that8230;voters may be willing to vote for corrupt politicians because they benefit in terms of public good provision. We fail to find any support for the thesis when we consider three types of public goods number of kilometres of road built, number of schools constructed and number of villages electrified.
8226;What are their general conclusions?
Our results very strongly suggest lower quality pro-majority candidates are more likely to win when voter ethnicization increases8230;In a more general setting, one may also expect candidate substitution where, in response to increased voter ethnicisation, parties alter their candidate choice in the direction of increased parochialism.
Extracted from 8216;Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Political Corruption8217; by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Rohini Pande
Full text is available at nber.org
