When governments are constrained by limited resources, how do they decide who will get basic public services like electricity, potable water, education, and health care? Because such public services are the building blocks of development, the demand for them is universal, even when the ability of governments to supply them is not. Inevitably, some get public services before others---and some never get them at all. This dissertation examines how political institutions shape the provision and distribution of local public goods around the world. Drawing on a unique and novel set of satellite imagery to identify the provision of electricity in every part of the world at an unprecedented level of spatial resolution, I show that democratic elections induce governments to allocate local public goods more efficiently and equitably than in autocratic regimes. / My dissertation uses satellite-derived data that are consistently and repeatedly measured, with complete global coverage down to the local level. Drawing on this common data source, I investigate the distribution of scarce electrical power across nations, among the poorest areas of all developing countries, and across all villages in India's largest state. The results affirm the power of electoral incentives in inducing higher and broader levels of local public goods, even in the poorest corners of the world. / To win the necessary support required to maintain office, democratic leaders must court large numbers of voters, resulting in an institutional incentive to invest more heavily in public goods and services. In democracies, public service provision wins votes most cost-effectively when provided to areas with higher voter densities. Meanwhile, in autocratic settings, there are no political incentives for leaders to condition state resources according to population density. I show that this simple expectation has profound implications for regional development and for our theories relating democracy to state capacity and economic growth.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CHENGCHI/U0003424176 |
| Creators | Min, Brian Kyung-Hue. |
| Publisher | University of California, Los Angeles. |
| Source Sets | National Chengchi University Libraries |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Rights | Copyright © nccu library on behalf of the copyright holders |
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