We study whether in single-member-district legislative systems, powerful politicians engage in political favoritism towards their constituents. The focus is on the chief ministers of Indian state governments. Using night light intensity as a measure of economic activity, we find that a constituency represented by a sitting chief minister exhibits about 13 percentage increase in luminosity relative to all other constituencies. The effect comes predominantly from the cases where the chief minister's constituency lies outside their birth region. Neighboring constituencies, particularly those with strategic political value, also benefit from this windfall, suggesting the mechanism at play is likely to be political expediency rather than in-group favoritism.

我们研究了在单成员区立法制度中，强大的政治家是否对他们的选民进行政治偏爱。重点是印度各州政府的首席部长。通过使用夜间照明强度作为经济活动的度量，我们发现以现任首相为代表的选区相对于所有其他选区而言，其光度提高了约13％。这种影响主要来自首席大臣选区不在其出生地区的情况。邻近的选区，尤其是具有战略政治价值的选区，也将从这一意外之财中受益，这表明起作用的机制很可能是政治上的权宜之计，而不是集团内部的偏爱。