American Economic Review Vol. 114 No. 10 2024
The Price of Power: Costs of Political Corruption in Indian Electricity
Abstract
Politicians may target public goods to benefit their constituents, at the expense of others. I study corruption in the context of Indian electricity and estimate the welfare consequences. Using new administrative billing data and close-election regression discontinuities, I show that billed electricity consumption is lower for constituencies of the winning party by almost 40 percent, while actual consumption, measured by nighttime lights, is higher. I document the covert way in which politicians subsidize constituents by manipulating bills. These actions have substantial welfare implications, with an efficiency loss of US$0.9 billion, leading to unreliable electricity supply and significant negative consequences for development.
- DOI
- 10.1257/aer.20230248
- Volume
- 114
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 3314-3344
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref