Estimating the Effect of Quotas Across India Using Satellite Imagery
Abstract: We estimate the effect of electoral quotas in India’s state legislatures on the provision of public services to villages. To address endogeneity and selection concerns, we use a geographic discontinuity design, focusing on villages just inside and outside borders that delineate reserved and unreserved constituencies. By comparing villages that are on average highly similar except for reservation status, we estimate the effect of reservation on improving the provision of electricity from 1992 to 2009. Looking nationally, the average effect of reservation across India is negligible. Yet after unpacking the data, we show that the national average effect is in fact comprised of highly varying effects across states, swinging from positive to negative. We argue that the effects of reservation depends on whether reservation decreases political competition or not within state level politics.
