Welfare Implications of Political Patronage in Electricity

Political patronage in electricity provision is a common occurrence, with politicians favoring their voters. This benefits needy consumers, but hurts electricity providers, affecting their ability to reliably supply electricity to everyone. Using a close-election Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), I show that actual electricity consumption, from satellite data, is higher in constituencies supporting the ruling party, but reported consumption from electricity bills is lower.

• electricity
• welfare
• EDS
• PhD talk
• Meera Mahadevan
• Political Patronage