Author(s): Eduardo Betancourt
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This paper studies the limitations of political affirmative action policies. In India, certain state legislature seats are restricted for the historically-discriminated lower castes (Dalits). Dalits are a large and heterogeneous group and there is little understanding of how different castes have been impacted by such enfranchisement, due to a lack of data on the individual caste of beneficiaries. Exploiting the link between names and caste membership, I create a new dataset including the caste of workers involved in a public workfare program (NREGA). Because constituencies are reserved for Dalit legislators based on a population cutoff rule, I use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of having a Dalit state representative on the timing of payments to low-caste laborers in NREGA. I explore this effect on all Dalit workers and differentially by the individual caste of the worker. I find that Dalit workers represented by a Dalit state legislator experience a 12% higher probability of receiving their payments late. This effect is constant across all individual castes, except when considering constituencies won by parties that expressly favor Dalit voters. In this instance, I estimate that Dalit workers receive earlier payments in reserved constituencies and that those belonging to the state’s largest Dalit caste are even more advantaged. The deleterious effects of having a Dalit representative on Dalit workers are borne entirely by areas where the legislator has lower bargaining power over the local bureaucrat who directly manages the processing of payments. Given the high desirability of stable public employment, often these bureaucrat postings attract people from a more advantaged social background, relative to the Dalit legislators. Hence, my findings point to the importance of considering vertical power structures when designing policies aimed at empowering under-represented minorities around the world.
Published: 2022-12-28 18:42:16 PT
Stage: Working Paper
Fields: Development and Growth, Political Economy
Research Group(s): Playground
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Versions: v1 (12/28/2022)