Political accountability for populist policies: Lessons from the world’s largest democracy
中文摘要
对于由受欢迎的领导人实施、具有广泛吸引力却带来不利经济影响的政策，我们对其选举效应知之甚少。我们分析了世界最大民主国家实施的一项此类政策之后的选民行为。这项政策是印度2016年的“废钞令”，它出人意料地使86%的流通货币在一夜之间失效，并在随后数月造成严重的现金短缺和经济困难。然而，该政策对大多数选民具有吸引力，并被宣传为一项打击腐败的措施。我们利用一项在全国范围内以行政区为单位实施的银行扩张政策所造成的银行分支机构数量的不连续性。基于银行较少的行政区现金短缺更为严重这一事实，我们在银行扩张政策的门槛处，识别废钞令所致经济冲击严重程度的影响。断点回归估计表明，废钞令实施后，受其冲击更严重地区的选民对该政策的评价较低。采用断点差分（difference-in-discontinuity）设计，我们发现，执政党在受废钞令冲击更严重的地区表现相对较差，得票份额低4.7个百分点，赢得州议会议席的可能性也相对较低。历史上一贯强烈支持执政党的地区，尽管对该政策本身的评价较低，投票行为却几乎没有反应。
Abstract
We know little about the electoral effects of policies with broad appeal that are implemented by popular leaders, but which have adverse economic effects. We analyze voter behavior following one such policy implemented in the world’s largest democracy – India’s 2016 ‘Demonetization,’ which unexpectedly made 86% of the currency-in-circulation redundant overnight, and led to severe cash shortages and economic hardship in subsequent months. Yet, the policy appealed to a majority of voters, and was framed as one that would combat corruption. We leverage a discontinuity in the number of bank branches arising from a nationwide, district-level bank expansion policy. Using the fact that districts with fewer banks had greater cash shortages, we identify the impacts of demonetization’s economic severity at the bank-expansion cutoff. Regression discontinuity estimates show that following demonetization, voters in places with more severe demonetization had less favorable views of the policy. Using a difference-in-discontinuity design, we find that the ruling party performed relatively worse in regions with more severe demonetization, receiving a 4.7 percentage point lower fraction of votes, and were relatively less likely to win seats in state legislatures. Areas that were historically strongly aligned with the ruling party were nearly unresponsive in voting behavior, despite having a less favorable view of the policy itself.