The effect of randomized reservations of Pradhan (chief executive) positions in West Bengal local governments (panchayats) for women and members of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) following the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments of 1993 are examined. Sample consists of 89 villages...

Despite the importance of this issue for the design of institutions around the world, little is known about the relative performance of women as policy makers, about their impact on child development and about how their performance is evaluated by voters. This paper exploits the fact that in...

A commonly alleged pitfall of decentralization is that poverty, socio-economic inequality and lack of political competition allow local elites to capture local governments. This hypothesis is empirically examined using a longitudinal sample of 80 West Bengal villages concerning targeting of...