Aklin, M. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2020) Inequality in policy implementation: caste and electrification in rural India. Journal of Public Policy 41 (2), pp. 331-359. ISSN 0143-814X.
|
Text
SSRN-id3537542.pdf - Author's Accepted Manuscript Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (13MB) | Preview |
Abstract
We examine unequal outcomes in the implementation of India's national rural electrification program in Uttar Pradesh. We ask two questions: (1) to what extent did Dalits, the lowest group in India's caste hierarchy, receive less attention when the state electrified rural communities? (2) Was BSP, the state's Dalit party, able to reduce this inequality? Using data from a hundred thousand villages, we provide robust evidence for unequal outcomes. Villages inhabited solely by Dalits were 20 percentage points less likely to be covered by the program than villages without any Dalits. Moreover, a regression discontinuity analysis shows that the electoral success of BSP failed to reduce such differences. These results highlight the magnitude and persistence of caste inequality in the implementation of democratic public policy, despite political representation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
Depositing User: | Chao-Yo Cheng |
Date Deposited: | 17 Jan 2022 17:59 |
Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 18:14 |
URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/47016 |
Statistics
Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.