Information and Governance: Experimental Evidence from India

印度是世界上最大的民主国家，居住着世界上大约三分之一的穷人。然而，与许多低收入民主国家一样，社会服务提供的质量仍然很差，在衡量公职人员腐败的指数中，印度的得分通常相当高。拟议研究的目标是了解信息在改善低收入民主国家治理方面的作用。我们提出了两个研究这些问题的项目。第一个实验建立在2010年2月印度拉贾斯坦邦村委会选举期间进行的实地实验基础上。随机选择的一组公民被给予不同类型的信息，并对选举结果进行比较。这项提议将支持收集和分析后续调查数据以及民选官员随后作出的决定。第二项涉及在德里进行的一项多年试验，在这项试验中，公民再次被提供关于地方议员表现记录的不同信息。我们将对公民和官员进行为期两年的跟踪，并研究信息对绩效的影响。该项目将产生严格的实证证据，证明提供信息可以影响公民和民选官员的行为。它将为发展经济学和发展中经济体的政治经济学提供重要的新见解。

India is the world's largest democracy and home to roughly one-third of the world's poor. However, like many low-income democracies, the quality of social service delivery remains poor, and India typically scores quite high on indices designed to measure corruption by public officials. The goal of the proposed research is to understand the role of information in improving the governance of low-income democracies. We propose two projects that examine these issues. The first builds on a field experiment conducted during the February 2010 on village council elections in the Indian state of Rajasthan. A randomly selected set of citizens were given different types of information, and the results of the elections were compared. This proposal will support the collection and analysis of follow-up survey data and subsequent decisions by elected officials. The second involves a multi-year experiment in Delhi where citizens are again provided with different information on the performance record of local councilors. We will follow citizens and officials for two years, and examine the impact of information on performance.The project will generate rigorous empirical evidence on the ways that providing information can affect both citizens and elected officials behavior. It will provide important new insights into the political economy of development economics and developing economies.