This dissertation consists of three chapters studying topics in development economics and political economy. The first two chapters explore the political economy of drought relief in India and potential consequences for local economies. The third chapter focuses on the effect of the residential segregation of the South Asian community on the political views of natives in England and Wales.
In the first chapter, I study the allocation of drought relief in three states of southern India between 2008 and 2019. I compare the observed allocation against the national government’s guidelines for drought relief and show that state governments systematically deviate from these guidelines. To assess the potential role of political motives in this mistargeting, I develop a dynamic probabilistic voting model. The model provides testable implications relating electoral incentives to the allocation of relief, which I show hold empirically.
In the second chapter, I consider the potential impacts of receiving drought relief on agricultural output at the local level. Using a satellite-based vegetation index as a proxy for agricultural production, I find that drought relief is associated with increased agricultural output. However, I also show that this positive correlation is strongest when relief is appropriately allocated to drought-affected areas. I consider a number of alternative explanations for these results, but conclude that the results are consistent with drought relief being more effective in drought-affected areas.
In the third chapter (joint with Sergio Villar Vallenas), we study how the size and spatial distribution of South Asians influences the sentiments of natives towards the group in England and Wales. We use voting for the British National Party (BNP), an extreme right political party, to measure natives’ sentiment. One obstacle to causally identifying the effect of segregation on the voting for the BNP is that the antipathy for South Asians reflected in BNP support might lead to segregation. To address this concern, we isolate variation in the settlement patterns of South Asians using historical immigration patterns. We find that a rise in the residential segregation of South Asians increases voting for the BNP in both a European Parliament and UK general election.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/43303 |
| Date | 05 November 2021 |
| Creators | Tarquinio, Lisa |
| Contributors | Mookherjee, Dilip, Hassan, Tarek A. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
Page generated in 0.0251 seconds