(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Growth and Election Outcomes in a Developing Country
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecq/wpaper/1115.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Growth and Election Outcomes in a Developing Country

Author

Listed:
  • Poonam Gupta

    (NIPFP, India)

  • Arvind Panagariya

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

With the exception Brander and Drazen (2008), who use a comprehensive cross-country database consisting of both developed and developing countries, the hypothesis that rapid growth helps incumbents win elections has been tested exclusively for the developed countries (e.g., Ray Fair 1978). But since sustained rapid growth offers the prospect of pulling vast numbers of the voters out of poverty within a generation, such an effect is far more likely to be present in the developing rather than developed countries. In this paper, we offer the first test of the hypothesis on a large developing and poor country, India, which has seen its economy grow 8 to 9 percent recently. We first generalize the Fair model to allow for multiple candidates instead for just two and then test it using cross-state data. We find quantitatively large and statistically robust effect of growth on the prospects of the candidates of the state incumbent parties to win elections. Specifically, we use the data on 422 candidates in the 2009 parliamentary elections and show that the candidates of incumbent parties in high-growth states have much better prospects of victory than those in low-growth states.

Suggested Citation

  • Poonam Gupta & Arvind Panagariya, 2011. "Growth and Election Outcomes in a Developing Country," Working Papers 1115, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, revised Aug 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecq:wpaper:1115
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://indianeconomy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/working_papers/wp_2011-8.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adi Brender & Allan Drazen, 2008. "How Do Budget Deficits and Economic Growth Affect Reelection Prospects? Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2203-2220, December.
    2. Alesina, A. & Rosenthal, H., 1989. "Moderating Elections," Working papers 537, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    3. Bornier Jean Magnan de & Norpoth H. & Lewis-Beck M.S. & Lafay J.D., 1991. "Economics and Politics The calculus of support," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 2(4), pages 579-581, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gupta, Poonam, 2013. "What do the Voters Reward: Personality, Party or Performance?," MPRA Paper 53795, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Milan Vaishnav & Johnathan Guy, 2018. "Does Higher Turnout Hurt Incumbents? An Analysis of State Elections in India," Studies in Indian Politics, , vol. 6(1), pages 71-87, June.
    3. Stanley L. Winer & J. Stephen Ferris & Bharatee Bhusana Dash & Pinaki Chakraborty, 2021. "Political competitiveness and the private–public structure of public expenditure: a model and empirics for the Indian States," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(6), pages 1430-1471, December.
    4. Dutta, Bhaskar & Gupta, Poonam, 2012. "How Do Indian Voters Respond to Candidates with Criminal Charges : Evidence from the 2009 Lok Sabha Elections," MPRA Paper 38417, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bharatee Bhusana Dash & J. Stephen Ferris, 2018. "Economic Performance and Electoral Volatility: Testing the Economic Voting Hypothesis on Indian States, 1957–2013," Carleton Economic Papers 18-07, Carleton University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Linda Gonçalves Veiga, 2013. "Voting functions in the EU-15," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 411-428, December.
    2. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2016. "Voting and Popularity," CREMA Working Paper Series 2016-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    3. Michael Berlemann & Sören Enkelmann & Torben Kuhlenkasper, 2015. "Unraveling the Relationship Between Presidential Approval and the Economy: A Multidimensional Semiparametric Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 468-486, April.
    4. Lehmann, M. Christian & Matarazzo, Hellen, 2019. "Voters’ response to in-kind transfers: Quasi-experimental evidence from prescription drug cost-sharing in Brazil," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Blessing Chiripanhura & Miguel Niño‐Zarazúa, 2015. "Aid, Political Business Cycles and Growth in Africa," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(8), pages 1387-1421, November.
    6. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2017. "Public Attitudes toward Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Representative German Population Survey," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 42-69, February.
    7. Filippov, Mikhail G, 2002. "Russian Voting and the Initial Economic Shock of Hyperinflation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 111(1-2), pages 73-104, March.
    8. Giorgio Bellettini & Carlotta Berti Ceroni & Giovanni Prarolo, 2013. "Persistence Of Politicians And Firms' Innovation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(4), pages 2056-2070, October.
    9. Benjamin Marx & Vincent Pons & Vincent Rollet, 2022. "Electoral Turnovers," NBER Working Papers 29766, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Lamar Crombach & Frank Bohn, 2024. "Uninformed voters with (im)precise expectations: Explaining political budget cycle puzzles," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 275-311, March.
    11. Sergio Naruhiko Sakurai & Maria Isabel Accoroni Theodoro, 2020. "On the relationship between political alignment and government transfers: triple differences evidence from a developing country," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1107-1141, March.
    12. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Ziogas, Thanasis & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2021. "Revisiting the political economy of fiscal adjustments," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    14. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2000. "Political support for reforms: Economics of voting in transition countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1491-1513, August.
    15. Camille Kelbel & Virginie Van Ingelgom & Soetkin Verhaegen, 2016. "Looking for the European Voter: Split-Ticket Voting in the Belgian Regional and European Elections of 2009 and 2014," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 116-129.
    16. Evans, Olaniyi, 2020. "Fiscal Discipline, Financial Development & Economic Growth in Nigeria," MPRA Paper 99242, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Antoine Auberger, 2011. "Popularity Functions for the French President and Prime Minister (1995-2007)," Working Papers halshs-00872313, HAL.
    18. E Goulas & C Kallandranis & A Zervoyianni, 2019. "Voting Behaviour and the Economy: Evidence from Greece," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 24(1), pages 35-58, March.
    19. Andreas Kern & Puspa Amri, 2021. "Political credit cycles," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 76-108, March.
    20. Cáceres, Neila & Malone, Samuel W., 2015. "Optimal Weather Conditions, Economic Growth, and Political Transitions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 16-30.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    India; growth; elections; developing country; poverty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecq:wpaper:1115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ursula Schwarzhaupt (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/siclbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.