Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Allocation of village public goods at community level: does political reservation help?

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Constitutional Political Economy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

It has been empirically observed that reserving seats for leaders belonging to disadvantaged social groups at the local level improves targeting of household public goods to households belonging to these groups. However, it is not clear whether a similar result holds for the allocation of village public goods that have limited spillover effects across households in a village, such as repair and maintenance of access roads to households, streetlights, sewer lines, etc. The present paper uses locational data collected from a sample of Indian villages and applies spatial econometrics to test whether political reservations for elected representatives increase allocations to households belonging to the reserved community, especially when they are in the minority. The results show that for certain types of village public goods, political reservations produce favourable allocations for the reserved community when locational clustering of the communities is present.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See Mookherjee (2015)

  2. When only members belonging to the reserved community can run for office.

  3. Though papers like Duflo et al. (2005) and Bardhan and Mookherjee (2012) claim to find similar evidence, as we discuss later in this section, they fail to see that such results are dependent on locational clustering of deprived community households and the extent of spillover associated with the good as we do in this paper.

  4. The SC community lies at the bottom of the hierarchical caste system prevalent among Hindus, who constitute 80.5% of Indian population (see http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_And_You/religion.aspx).

  5. See Besley et al. (2004), Bardhan et al. (2010) and Bardhan and Mookherjee (2012).

  6. See Talen and Anselin (1998) and Lundberg (2006).

  7. A Left coalition ruled the state for 34 years from 1977 to 2011.

  8. In a recent paper Dasgupta and Pal (2019) cites IHDS 2 data for India to show that by 2012 in India across all the states on average 24.3% households practiced untouchability between the upper caste Hindu and backward caste Hindu. In contrast, only 0.9% of the households practiced untouchability in West Bengal.

  9. Intermediate administrative unit between the districts and villages.

  10. Unlike West Bengal, some states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh do not allow the use of party symbols in local elections. However, even in these states political parties play an important role in mobilisation of votes by supporting candidates affiliated to it and providing campaign finance (Dunning and Nilekani 2013).

  11. For example, if the GP has 30% of its population belonging to SC community, out of 10 village constituencies of the GP, 3 will be reserved for representatives belonging to the SC community.

  12. In India, according to “Rural Local Body Core Functions and Finances” (2014), a study for the Fourteenth Finance Commission by the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi reports that the share of own revenues in total revenues of village Rural Local Bodies in 20 selected states across India is 11% only for the year 2012–2013. While it is higher in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tripura and Goa, it is low in West Bengal, Orissa, Manipur, Kerala, Assam, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

  13. Currently West Bengal has 23 districts.

  14. By Constitution of India, GP elections are held every 5 years. Since in no GP the post of Pradhan is reserved at two consecutive elections, the reservation status of Nimdaria-Kodalia has changed in the election held in 2018.

  15. This was done to rule out any influence the proximity to Pradhan’s village constituency may have had on public good allocation.

  16. Besley et al. (2004) found positive significant effect of location of the GP headquarters on allocation of village public goods across villages.

  17. A negligible fraction of household members relocated due to jobs or marriage (mostly women), but the household did not. This trend is consistent with Indian migration data of 2007–08 (NSSO 2010).

  18. See Hengl (2006) and Boots and Getis (1988) on the choice of optimum radius.

  19. We thank one of the referees for suggesting this hypothesis.

References

  • Anselin, L., & Bera, A. (1998). Spatial dependence in linear regression models with an introduction to spatial econometrics. In A. Ullah & D. Giles (Eds.), Handbook of applied economic statistics (pp. 237–289). New York, NY: Dekker.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bardhan, P., Mitra, S., Mookherjee, D., & Sarkar, A. (2009). Local democracy and clientelism: Implications for political stability in Rural West Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly,44(9), 46–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bardhan, P., & Mookherjee, D. (2012). Political clientelism and capture: Theory and evidence from West Bengal, India. Working paper. Retrieved from http://people.bu.edu/dilipm/wkpap/clientcapaug2012f.pdf. Accessed 16 April 2016.

  • Bardhan, P., Mookherjee, D., & Torrado, M. P. (2010). Impact of political reservations in West Bengal local governments on anti-poverty targeting. Journal of Globalization and Development, 1(1). http://people.bu.edu/dilipm/publications/jgdrevised.

  • Besley, T., Pande, R., Rahman, L., & Rao, V. (2004). The politics of public goods provision: Evidence from Indian Local Government. The Journal of the European Economic Association,2, 416–426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boots, B. N., & Getis, A. (1988). Point pattern analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dasgupta, I., & Pal, S. (2019). Touch thee not: Group conflict, caste power, and untouchability in Rural India. IZA discussion paper no. 12016. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3318772. Accessed 13 Mar 2019.

  • Duflo, E. (2005). Why political reservations? Journal of the European Economic Association,3(2-3), 668–678. https://doi.org/10.1162/jeea.2005.3.2-3.668.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duflo, E., Fischer, G., & Chattopadhyay, R. (2005, February 28). Efficiency and rent seeking in local government: Evidence from randomized policy experiments in India. MIT Department of Economics, typescript. Retrieved from https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/publications/107_Duflo_Efficiency_and_Rent_Seeking.pdf. Accessed 25 April 2018.

  • Dunning, T., & Nilekani, J. (2013). Ethnic quotas and political mobilization: Castes, parties and distribution in Indian Village Councils. American Political Science Review,107, 35–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hengl, T. (2006). Finding the right pixel size. Computers & Geosciences,32(9), 1283–1298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2005.11.008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hussain, M. A., & Tyagi, M. (2019). Role of political connections in land investment: Evidence from rural India. Constitutional Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-019-09293-3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lundberg, J. (2006). Spatial interaction model of spillovers from locally provided public services. Regional Studies,40(6), 631–644.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mookherjee, D. (2015). Political decentralization. Annual Review of Economics,7, 231–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • NSSO, Government of India (June 2010). Migration in India 2007-08 NSS 64th Round. New Delhi.

  • Oates, W. (1972). Fiscal federalism. New York: Harcourt Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Romer, T., & Rosenthal, H. (1978). Political resource allocation, resource allocation and the status quo. Public Choice,33, 27–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Talen, E., & Anselin, L. (1998). Assessing spatial equity: An evaluation of measures of accessibility to public playgrounds. Environment and Planning A,30, 595–613.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The paper has benefited from its presentation at Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, LICOS, Katholik University of Leuven, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack and the Political Economy Conference, Silvaplana, 2019. We thank Mr Bhaskar Bose for his guidance during the data collection and processing of locational data used in this paper. The insightful comments from two anonymous reviewers and one of the editors of the journal are acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

    Vivekananda Mukherjee, Saheli Bose & Malabika Roy

Authors
  1. Vivekananda Mukherjee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Saheli Bose
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Malabika Roy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vivekananda Mukherjee.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mukherjee, V., Bose, S. & Roy, M. Allocation of village public goods at community level: does political reservation help?. Const Polit Econ 31, 363–393 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-020-09309-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-020-09309-3

Keywords

JEL Classification

Search

Navigation