Decentralization and Accountability: Are Voters More Vigilant in Local than in National Elections?
25 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2016
Date Written: February 2001
Abstract
Voters in India are more vigilant in monitoring government at the local than at the national level. In state assembly elections voters reward incumbents for local income growth, and punish them for a rise in inequality, over their entire term in office. But in national elections voters behave myopically, rewarding growth in national income and a fall in inflation and inequality only in the year preceding the election.
Defining vigilance as retrospective voting - where voters evaluate incumbents on their performance during their entire term in office - Khemani compares voter behavior in local and national elections to make inferences about whether voters are more vigilant in monitoring government at the local level. Using data from 14 major states in India over the period 1960-92, she contrasts voters' behavior in state legislative assembly elections with their behavior in national legislative elections.
In state assembly elections voters reward incumbents for local income growth, and punish them for a rise in inequality, over their entire term in office. But in national elections voters behave myopically, rewarding growth in national income and a fall in inflation and inequality only in the year preceding the election. The evidence is consistent with greater voter vigilance and government accountability in local than in national elections.
This paper - a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the role of decentralization in improving public service delivery.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions
By Alberto F. Alesina, William Easterly, ...
-
By Timothy J. Besley and Anne Case
-
The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India
By Timothy J. Besley and Robin Burgess
-
The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India
By Timothy J. Besley and Robin Burgess
-
Elected Versus Appointed Regulators: Theory and Evidence
By Stephen Coate and Timothy J. Besley
-
Cents and Sociability: Household Income and Social Capital in Rural Tanzania
By Deepa Narayan and Lant Pritchett
-
Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old Age Pension and Intra-Household Allocation in South Africa
By Esther Duflo
-
Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a India-Wide Randomized Policy Experiment
-
Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a India-Wide Randomized Policy Experiment
-
Land Reform, Poverty Reduction and Growth: Evidence from India
By Timothy J. Besley and Robin Burgess
