Partisan Politics and Intergovernmental Transfers in India

Khemani, Stuti

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: POLITICS;    INTERGOVERNMENTAL TRANSFER OF FUNDS;    INTERGOVERNMENTAL TRANSFERS;    ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES;    POLITICAL DECISION MAKING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3016
RP-ID  :  WPS3016

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Recently there has been a surge ininternational empirical evidence that national policymakersallocate resources across regions based on politicalconsiderations, in addition to any normative considerationsof equity and efficiency. In order to mitigate thesepolitical compulsions, several federations around the worldhave attempted to create independent constitutional bodiesthat are responsible for determining federal transfers tosubnational jurisdictions. The author tests whetherconstitutional rules indeed make a difference in curbingpolitical influence by contrasting the impact of politicalvariables on two types of intergovernmental transfers tostates in the Indian federation over a period of time,1972-95. The pattern of evidence shows that transfers, whoseregional distribution is determined by political agents,usually provide greater resources to state governments thatare politically affiliated with the national ruling partyand are important in maximizing the party'srepresentation in the national legislature. But thepolitical effect on statutory transfers, determined by anindependent agency with constitutional authority, isstrikingly contrary, with greater resources going tounaffiliated state governments. The author argues that thiscontrasting evidence indicates that constitutional rulesindeed restrict the extent to which partisan politics canaffect resources available to subnational governments.