Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption

Abhijit Banerjee and Rohini Pande

Working Paper Series from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government

Abstract: This paper examines how increased voter ethnicization, defined as a greater preference for the party representing one's ethnic group, affects politician quality. If politics is characterized by incomplete policy commitment, then ethnicization reduces average winner quality for the pro-majority party with the opposite true for the minority party. The effect increases with greater numerical dominance of the majority (and so social homogeneity). Empirical evidence from a survey on politician corruption that we conducted in North India is remarkably consistent with our theoretical predictions.

Date: 2007-06
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (73)

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https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/work ... ?PubId=4877&type=WPN

Related works:
Working Paper: Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption (2007)
Working Paper: Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption (2007)
Working Paper: Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecl:harjfk:rwp07-031

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