Abstract
Does the unequal formal representation of people in legislatures (“malapportionment”) affect development? Answering this question is critical for assessing the welfare costs of malapportionment. We argue that representation might spur development as the desire for reelection incentivizes legislators to provide for their districts, and as voters hold politicians to account for doing so. Since this is the case, malapportionment might cause unequal development. Using data from India, we show that a 10% increase in representation causes a 0.6% increase in night lights, a frequently used proxy for development. Reapportionment, or the equalization for representation, attenuates this effect. Consistent with the theory, the effect of representation is larger in districts with legislators and voters that are able to hold the executive to account.
Highlights
The empirical case against unequal legislative representation or malapportionment is incomplete
We argue that representation might spur development as the desire for reelection incentivizes legislators to provide for their districts, and as voters hold politicians to account for doing so
A voluminous literature examines the effects of unequal representation on coalition composition [1, 2], the distribution of funds [3,4,5] and public policy [6], we know of no work that examines its effects on economic development
Summary
The empirical case against unequal legislative representation or malapportionment is incomplete. We draw on the usually separate literatures on malapportionment reviewed above and the distributive politics literature [7] to argue that unequal legislative representation might affect developmental outcomes. In addition to contributing to the literature on malapportionment, our paper contributes to the literature on democracy and development Much of this literature focuses on the “extensive” margin, examining the effects of transitions to democracy on development [12]. We focus on the “intensive” margin, examining whether more or more equal representation within a large democracy improves development. In this sense, our paper is similar to the burgeoning literature on the effects of the deepening of the franchise [13] on development
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