A Political Economy Model of the Ganges Pollution Cleanup Problem

Amitrajeet Batabyal and Hamid Beladi

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We study pollution cleanup in the Ganges in Varanasi, India. Voters elect politicians and elected politicians decide how much pollution to clean up. Between the two time periods, there is an election. Politicians are sincere or insincere. The marginal cost of public funds ζ measures how efficiently elected politicians transform tax receipts into pollution cleanup. Voters have identical per period utility functions. We ascertain the equilibrium outcome and per period voter welfare. Second, we show that an increase in ζ reduces the equilibrium pollution cleanup and voter welfare. Third, an insincere politician can delay the revelation of his insincerity. We show that a critical value of ζ,ζ^*, exists such that the insincere incumbent separates and loses the election if and only if ζ>ζ^* and that he pools and is re-elected otherwise. Finally, we note that an increase in ζ can raise voter welfare when politicians are more likely to be insincere.

Keywords: Ganges River; Politician; Pollution Cleanup; Uncertainty; Voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 Q52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01-09, Revised 2020-05-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-env, nep-pol and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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