Enevoldsen, Nils Pande, Rohini Walton, Michael 2024 Banerjee, Abhijit <br/><br/>
Public Information Is an Incentive for Politicians: Experimental Evidence from Delhi Elections 

 -  American Economic Journal: Applied Economics  2024 
 - 323-353 
<br/><br/> Two years prior to elections, two-thirds of Delhi municipal councillors learned they had been randomly chosen for a preelection newspaper report card. Treated councillors in high-slum areas increased pro-poor spending, relative both to control counterparts and treated counterparts from low-slum areas. Treated incumbents ineligible to rerun in home wards because of randomly assigned gender quotas were substantially likelier to run elsewhere only if their report card showed a strong pro-poor spending record. Parties also benefited electorally from councillors' high pro-poor spending. In contrast, in a cross-cut experiment, councillors did not react to actionable information that was not publicly disclosed. 
<br/><br/><label>ISSN: </label>1945-7782 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/> Belief<br/> Housing<br/> Human Development<br/> Income Distribution<br/> Welfare<br/>Education