Building connections: Political corruption and road construction in India

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lehne, Jonathan; Shapiro, Jacob N.; Vanden Eynde, Oliver
• 署名单位: Paris School of Economics; Princeton University; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2017.10.009
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 62-78
• 关键词: corruption; political connections; public procurement; Kinship networks

摘要

Politically-driven corruption is a pervasive challenge for development, but evidence of its welfare effects are scarce. Using data from a major rural road construction programme in India we document political influence in a setting where politicians have no official role in contracting decisions. Exploiting close elections to identify the causal effect of coming to power, we show that the share of contractors whose name matches that of the winning politician increases by 83% (from 4% to 7%) in the term after a close election compared to the term before. Regression discontinuity estimates at the road level show that political interference raises the cost of road construction and increases the likelihood that roads go missing.