Discussion paper

DP6381 Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption

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.

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Citation

Banerjee, A and R Pande (2007), ‘DP6381 Parochial Politics: Ethnic Preferences and Politician Corruption‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6381. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp6381