Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption
View/ Open
Published Version
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/publicationsMetadata
Show full item recordCitation
Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Rohini Pande. “Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption.” CID Working Paper Series 2007.147, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, July 2007.Abstract
This paper examines how increased voter ethnicization, defined as a greater preference for the party representing one's ethnic group, affects politician quality. If politics is characterized by incomplete policy commitment, then ethnicization reduces average winner quality for the pro-majority party with the opposite true for the minority party. The effect increases with greater numerical dominance of the majority (and so social homogeneity). Empirical evidence from a survey on politician corruption that we conducted in North India is remarkably consistent with our theoretical predictions.Terms of Use
This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAACitable link to this page
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42482350
Collections
Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)