When Criminality Begets Crime: The Role of Elected Politicians in India

Nishith Prakash (), Soham Sahoo, Deepak Saraswat () and Reetika Sindhi ()
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Nishith Prakash: Northeastern University
Deepak Saraswat: University of Connecticut
Reetika Sindhi: University of California, Santa Barbara

No 15259, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper estimates the causal impact of electing criminally accused politicians and their nature of criminality on crime in India. We exploit the quasi-random variation in the outcome of close elections between candidates with and without criminal accusations to instrument the share of constituencies in the district won by criminally accused leaders. We find that a standard deviation increase in the share of criminally accused leaders in institutionally weaker states leads to a 4.3 percent increase in crime in districts, including crimes against women. The effect is more pronounced when the leaders are accused of serious crimes, indicating that seriously accused leaders have a detrimental impact on society.

Keywords: criminal accusations; elected leaders; close elections; crime; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 K42 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2022-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-law and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published online in: Journal of Law Economics and Organization , 30 August 2024

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