India is the world's largest democracy and home to roughly one-third of the world's poor. However, like many low-income democracies, the quality of social service delivery remains poor, and India typically scores quite high on indices designed to measure corruption by public officials. The goal of the proposed research is to understand the role of information in improving the governance of low-income democracies.
We propose two projects that examine these issues. The first builds on a field experiment conducted during the February 2010 on village council elections in the Indian state of Rajasthan. A randomly selected set of citizens were given different types of information, and the results of the elections were compared. This proposal will support the collection and analysis of follow-up survey data and subsequent decisions by elected officials.
The second involves a multi-year experiment in Delhi where citizens are again provided with different information on the performance record of local councilors. We will follow citizens and officials for two years, and examine the impact of information on performance.
The project will generate rigorous empirical evidence on the ways that providing information can affect both citizens and elected officials behavior. It will provide important new insights into the political economy of development economics and developing economies.
