TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bhalotra, Sonia R
AU  - Cassan, Guilhem
AU  - Clots-Figueras, Irma
AU  - Iyer, Lakshmi
TI  - Religion, Politician Identity and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 19173
PY  - 2013
Y2  - July 2013
DO  - 10.3386/w19173
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19173
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19173.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Sonia R. Bhalotra
Department of Economics
University of Warwick
Coventry
United Kingdom
E-Mail: srbhal@essex.ac.uk

Guilhem Cassan
University of Namur, CRED
8 rue du Rempart de la Vierge,
5000, Namur, Belgium
E-Mail: guilhem.cassan@fundp.ac.be

Irma Clots-Figueras
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Economics Department
C/Madrid 126
28903 Getage
Madrid
E-Mail: irmaclots@gmail.com

Lakshmi Iyer
Department of Economics
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46656
E-Mail: liyer@nd.edu
M1  - published as Sonia Bhalotra, Irma Clots-Figueras, Guilhem Cassan, Lakshmi Iyer. "Religion, Politician Identity and Development Outcomes: Evidence from India," in Daniel Hungerman and Daniel L. Chen, editors, "Economics of Religion and Culture" Elsevier, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Volume 104 (2014)

M3  - presented at "Economics of Religion and Culture", March 8-9, 2013
AB  - 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.
ER  -