Soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government decided to still hold the first round of the 2020 municipal elections as scheduled on March 15. What was the impact of these ...elections on the spread of COVID-19 in France? Answering this question leads to intricate econometric issues as omitted variables may drive both epidemiological dynamics and electoral turnout, and as a national lockdown was imposed at almost the same time as the elections. In order to disentangle the effect of the elections from that of confounding factors, we first predict each department’s epidemiological dynamics using information up to the election. We then take advantage of differences in electoral turnout across departments to identify the impact of the election on prediction errors in hospitalizations. We report a detrimental effect of the first round of the election on hospitalizations in locations that were already at relatively advanced stages of the epidemic. Estimates suggest that the elections accounted for at least 3,000 hospitalizations, or 11
%
of all hospitalizations by the end of March. Given the sizable health cost of holding elections during an epidemic, promoting ways of voting that reduce exposure to COVID-19 is key until the pandemic shows signs of abating.
The difference in COVID 19 death rates across political regimes has caught a lot of attention. The “efficient autocracy” view suggests that autocracies may be more efficient at putting in place ...policies that contain COVID 19 spread. On the other hand, the “biasing autocracy” view underlines that autocracies may be under reporting their COVID 19 data. We use fixed effect panel regression methods to discriminate between the two sides of the debate. Our results present a more nuanced picture: once pre-determined characteristics of countries are accounted for, COVID 19 death rates equalize across political regimes during the first months of the pandemic, but remain largely different a year into the pandemic. This emphasizes that early differences across political regimes were mainly due to omitted variable bias, whereas later differences are likely due to data manipulation by autocracies. A year into the pandemic, we estimate that this data manipulation may have hidden approximately 400,000 deaths worldwide.
•On average, democratic countries have a higher COVID 19 death rate, compared to autocratic countries.•The “efficient autocracy” view suggests that autocracies may be more efficient at putting in place policies that contain COVID 19 spread. The “biasing autocracy” view underlines that autocracies may be under reporting their COVID 19 data.•We use fixed effect panel regression methods to discriminate between the two views.•Once pre-determined characteristics of countries are accounted for, COVID 19 death rates equalize across political regimes during the first months of the pandemic, but remain largely different a year into the pandemic. Our results suggest that early differences across political regimes were mainly due to omitted variable bias, whereas later differences are likely due to data manipulation by autocracies.•A year into the pandemic, we estimate that this data manipulation hid approximately 400,000 deaths in the 137 countries of our sample.
This paper studies the impact of India's affirmative action policies for Scheduled Castes on educational attainment. Using a plausibly exogenous variation, I show that affirmative action increases ...educational attainment. The main improvements are in literacy and secondary schooling and there is only small evidence of increases in higher education. The benefits are not distributed evenly across genders: only males show an increase in education (in literacy, primary and secondary completion). Individuals at the intersection of discriminated groups (low caste and female) may not be benefiting from these policies.
•I show that educational attainment in India increase thanks to affirmative action.•This is driven by increases in primary and secondary schooling.•The distribution of this increase differs across genders.•Males gain but females are not affected.
•A person’s identity is associated with various social categories, such as gender and ethnicity.•The paper demonstrates the importance of the multiplicity of identity dimensions for the design of ...public policies.•We exploit the randomized nature of political reservations for women in India.•We show that a policy designed along the gender dimension alters the distribution of the benefits of this policy along the caste dimension.•We propose differential gender norms across caste groups as the mechanism behind these findings.
Identity is an important determinant of economic behavior. While the existing literature focuses on one identity dimension at a time, we show that the multiplicity of identity dimensions matters for economic behavior and that neglecting it may lead policymakers to overlook important, unexpected effects of economic policies. We exploit the randomized nature of political reservations for women in India to show that a policy designed along one identity dimension (gender) alters the distribution of the benefits of this policy along another one (caste). We propose differences in gender norms across caste groups as a mechanism.
I study identity-marker based policies and demonstrate the existence of identity manipulation. I analyze the impact of the Punjab Alienation of Land Act (1901), a caste-based legislation, on identity ...manipulation. Using data from the colonial census, I show that a movement of identity manipulation took place in response to the law. I estimate that in 20 years, 7.5 percent of the population that had an incentive to do so manipulated its identity. I then use an accounting exercise to estimate that the amount of mistargeting caused by this manipulation is between 3.9 percent and 8.2 percent of the land distributed.
We use a novel income tax data set to present evidence on the evolution of income concentration in the last 60 years of colonial rule in India. These data allow us to study the evolution of income ...concentration at the country level as well as the location of top income earners across provinces. We identify three key facts: (1) the evolution of income concentration in British India was nonlinear, following a U-shape, (2) the majority of top income earners were non-Europeans, and (3) the geographical location of top income earners changed over time with the province of Bombay gaining in importance in the early XXth century. We provide an interpretation of these results in the light of the economic and political changes in British India over the period.
•We use a novel data to present evidence on income concentration in British India.•The evolution of income concentration in British India followed a U-shape.•The majority of top income earners were likely to be non-Europeans.•Location of top income evolved. Bombay gained importance in the XXth century.•We interpret these in the light of the economic and political changes.
This paper investigates whether the religious identity of state legislators in India influences development outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. ...Using an instrumental variables approach derived from a regression discontinuity, we find that increasing the political representation of Muslims improves health and education outcomes in the district from which the legislator is elected. We find no evidence of religious favoritism: Muslim children do not benefit more from Muslim political representation than children from other religious groups.
The difference in COVID 19 death rates across political regimes has caught a lot of attention. The "efficient autocracy" view suggests that autocracies may be more efficient at putting in place ...policies that contain COVID 19 spread. On the other hand, the "biasing autocracy" view underlines that autocracies may be under reporting their COVID 19 data. We use fixed effect panel regression methods to discriminate between the two sides of the debate. Our results show that a third view may in fact be prevailing: once pre-determined characteristics of countries are accounted for, COVID 19 death rates equalize across political regimes. The difference in death rate across political regime seems therefore to be primarily due to omitted variable bias.
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