Publication type
Research Paper
Series Number
7473
Series
IZA Discussion Papers
Authors
Publication date
June 15, 2013
Summary:
This paper investigates whether the religious identity of state legislators in India influences development outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. To allow for politician identity to be correlated with constituency level voter preferences or characteristics that make religion salient, we use quasi-random variation in legislator identity generated by close elections between Muslim and non-Muslim candidates. We find that increasing the political representation of Muslims improves health and education outcomes in the district from which the legislator is elected. We find no evidence of religious favoritism: Muslim children do not benefit more from Muslim political representation than children from other religious groups.
Subjects
Link
http://legacy.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract?dp_id=7473
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