The political determinants of central governments' economic policies in India: an empirical investigation

Abstract

Using annual data from India, we investigate whether central governments' economic policies are affected by two political considerations-the proximity of an election to the national legislative assembly, and the nature of the central government (single-party versus coalition). We find that economic policies are responsive to election timing. On the other hand, economic policies are largely insensitive to government type. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Development and the Environment

“… 2. Outside of the electricity sector, a handful of empirical studies have investigated the relationship between elections and agricultural lending by publicly owned banks, expenditure on road construction, and tax collection (Chaudhuri & Dasgupta, 2005; Cole, 2009; Ghosh, 2006; Khemani, 2004). These studies find that funding for road construction and agricultural loans provided by publicly owned banks increased during election years, suggesting that political capture partly explains the provision of these goods.…”