TY  - JOUR
AU  - Munshi, Kaivan
AU  - Rosenzweig, Mark
TI  - The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14335
PY  - 2008
Y2  - September 2008
DO  - 10.3386/w14335
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14335
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14335.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kaivan Munshi
Department of Economics
Yale University
37 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
E-Mail: kaivan.munshi@yale.edu

Mark Rosenzweig
Department of Economics
Yale University
Box 208269
New Haven, CT 06520
Tel: 203/432-3588
E-Mail: mark.rosenzweig@yale.edu
AB  - Parochial politics is typically associated with poor leadership and low levels of public good provision. This paper explores the possibility that community involvement in politics need not necessarily worsen governance and, indeed, can be efficiency-enhancing when the context is appropriate. Complementing the new literature on the role of community networks in solving market problems, we test the hypothesis that strong traditional social institutions can discipline the leaders they put forward, successfully substituting for secular political institutions when they are ineffective. Using new data on Indian local governments at the ward level over multiple terms, and exploiting the randomized election reservation system, we find that the presence of a numerically dominant sub-caste (caste equilibrium) is associated with the selection of leaders with superior observed characteristics and with greater public good provision. This improvement in leadership competence occurs without apparently diminishing leaders' responsiveness to their constituency.
ER  -