Application for social programs: the role of local politics and caste networks in affirmative action in India

Véronique Gille ()

No DT/2016/13, Working Papers from DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation)

Abstract: India’s affirmative action programs are among the largest in the world. In the public sector, up to 49.5% of the jobs are reserved for low castes. However, the recruitment is highly discretionary, so it is difficult for low-castes without connections to access these jobs and thereby benefit from affirmative action. This paper studies the impact of having someone from the same caste as local elected leader on the probability of applying for jobs reserved for low castes in the public sector in India. The identification strategy exploits the political reservation system at the village level that determines the caste group of the person in power. Using data from three States in South India, I find that households are more likely to apply when the village council president is from their caste group. The evidence suggests that the impact comes from the council president using his connections to help his caste-fellows.

Keywords: India; affirmative action; caste; political reservations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 O12 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2016-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://dial.ird.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2016-13AA_caste_VG.pdf First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt201613

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Loic Le Pezennec ().