Working Paper: NBER ID: w19173
Authors: Sonia R. Bhalotra; Guilhem Cassan; Irma Clots-Figueras; Lakshmi Iyer
Abstract: This paper investigates whether the religious identity of state legislators in India influences development outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. To allow for politician identity to be correlated with constituency level voter preferences or characteristics that make religion salient, we use quasi-random variation in legislator identity generated by close elections between Muslim and non-Muslim candidates. We find that increasing the political representation of Muslims improves health and education outcomes in the district from which the legislator is elected. We find no evidence of religious favoritism: Muslim children do not benefit more from Muslim political representation than children from other religious groups.
Keywords: Muslim representation; Development outcomes; India; Health; Education
JEL Codes: H41; I15; J13; P16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Muslim political representation (J15) | improved health outcomes (I14) |
| Muslim political representation (J15) | decline in infant mortality (J13) |
| Muslim political representation (J15) | decline in neonatal mortality (J13) |
| Muslim political representation (J15) | decline in illiteracy rates among non-Muslims (J15) |
| Muslim political representation (J15) | increase in years of primary education completed (I21) |
| decline in infant mortality (J13) | similar for both Muslim and non-Muslim households (Z12) |