Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a India-Wide Randomized

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES

WOMEN AS POLICY MAKERS:

EVIDENCE FROM A INDIA-WIDE RANDOMIZED POLICY EXPERIMENT

Raghabendra Chattopadhyay

Esther Duflo

Working Paper 8615

http://www.nber.org/papers/w8615

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

1050 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02138

December

2001

We thank Daron Acemoglu, Abhijit Banerjee, Anne Case, Mihir Ghosh Dastidar, Angus Deaton, Marie

Lajus, Steve Levitt, Rohini Pande and Emmanuel Saez for discussions, Prasid Chakrobarty and Mihir Ghosh

Dastidar for organizing and supervising the data collection, Lucia Breierova, Shawn Cole and Jonathan

Robinson for excellent research assistance, and the National Insitute of Health (through grant RO1HD39922-

01) and the John D. and Catherine MacArthur foundation for financial support. Chattopadhyay thanks the

Institute for Economic Development at Boston University for its hospitality. The views expressed herein are

those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including ©

notice, is given to the source.

Women as Policy Makers:

Evidence from a India-Wide Randomized Policy Experiment

Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Esther Duflo

NBER Working Paper No. 8615

December 2001

JEL No. H4, H7, I18, J16, O1

ABSTRACT

This paper uses political reservations for women in India to study the impact of women’s

leadership on policy decisions. In 1998, one third of all leadership positions of Village Councils in West

Bengal were randomly selected to be reserved for a woman: in these councils only women could be

elected to the position of head. Village Councils are responsible for the provision on many local public

good in rural areas. Using a data set we collected on 165 Village Councils, we compare the type of public

goods provided in reserved and unreserved Villages Councils. We show that women invest more in

infrastructure that is directly relevant to the needs of rural women (water, fuel, and roads), while men

invest more in education. Women are more likely to participate in the policy-making process if the leader

of their village council is a woman.

Raghabendra Chattopadhyay Esther Duflo

Indian Institute of Management Department of Economics

Calcutta MIT, E52-252G

50 Memorial Drive

Cambridge, MA 02142

and NBER and CEPR

[email protected]

1 Introduction

Worldwide, women are under-represented in all political positions. In June 2000, women repre-

sented 13.8% of all parliament members, up from 9% in 1987. Compared to economic opportu-

nities, education, and legal rights, political representation is the area in which the gap between

men and women has narrowed the least between 1995 and 2000 (Norris and Inglehart 2000).

Increasing the political representation of women is often thought to be a “win-win” propo-

sition, increasing equity of eﬃciency: equity because women and men have diﬀerent political

agendas, and increased representation would ensure a better representation of women’s needs;

eﬃciency, because women are supposed to be better politicians (less likely to be corrupt, more

altruistic), and because the political agendas of women are thought to lead to investment in

child health and education, which have positive long term consequences on growth. Alleviating

deprivation and inequality in the political realm can thus have far reaching consequences, not

only for women, but for everyone (a point made most forcefully by Amartya Sen in Development

as Freedom (Sen 1999)). This position, articulated for example in the United Nations report,

The World’s Women (United-Nations (2000)), and in the World Bank’s report, Engendering

Development (World-Bank (2001)), shapes policies and debates around the world.

Because women’s representation in the political sphere advances slowly, and does not seem to

be greatly aﬀected by economic development, political reservations for women are often proposed

as a way to rapidly enhance women’s ability to participate in policy making. Quotas for women

in assemblies or on parties’ candidate lists are in force in the legislation of over 30 countries

(World-Bank (2001)), and in the internal rules of at least one party in 12 countries of the

European Union (Norris (2001)).

Reservation policies clearly have a strong impact on women’s representation.

This does not

necessarily imply, however, that they have a impact on policy decisions. In standard “Downsian”

political economy models, where candidates can commit to a speciﬁc policy, political decisions

reﬂect the preferences of the electorate. In a Coasian world, even if the reservation policy

increases women’s bargaining power, policy decisions other than transfers to women should not

See Jones (1998) for a study of the Argentinian case, and Norris (2001) for the impact of reservation in the

Lab our Party in the UK. Women’s representation fell from 25% to 7% in Eastern Europe when gender quotas

were eliminated during the transition from Communism (World-Bank (2001)).

be aﬀected. The eﬃcient outcome should be achieved, and women would then be compensated

with direct transfers.

There is some evidence that the assumption behind these models are violated. In the U.S.,

Levitt (1996) shows that politicians’ decisions are strongly inﬂuenced by personal ideology.

Female legislators devote more energy to women-speciﬁc issues than men do, and are also more

successful in passing legislation on women’s issues when they propose it (Thomas (1991), Thomas

and Welch (1991)). In India, Pande (1999) argues that reservation for minorities aﬀects targeted

transfers.

However, despite the importance of this issue for the design of institutions, very little is known

about the causal eﬀect of women’s representation on policy decisions. The available evidence,

based on cross-sectional comparison, is diﬃcult to interpret, because the fact that women are

better represented in a particular county or locality may reﬂect the political preferences of the

group that elects them. The correlation between policy outcomes and women’s participation

then may not reﬂect the causal eﬀect of women’s participation.

Furthermore, even if we knew more about the causal eﬀect of women’s representation, this

knowledge would not necessarily extend to the eﬀects of quotas, or other mechanisms to en-

force greater participation of women in the political process. Ensuring women’s representation

through quotas may distort political competition and have direct eﬀects. For example, it may

lower the competency of the pool of eligible candidates, alter voter’s preferences over political

parties, and increase the number of politicians that are new in oﬃce.

This paper studies the policy consequences of mandated representation of women by taking

advantage of a unique experiment implemented recently in India. Since 1998, one third of all

positions of chief (Pradhan) of the West Bengal village councils (Gram Panchayat, henceforth

GP) have been reserved for women: only women may be candidates for the position of Pradhan

in a reserved GP. Furthermore, the reserved GP were selected randomly: GP were ranked by

For example, Dollar, Fisman and Gatti (1999) ﬁnd a negative correlation between representation of women

in parliaments and corruption. Does this mean women are less corrupt, or that countries that are less corrupt

are also more likely to elect women to parliament? Besley and Case (1997) show that worker compensation and

child support enforcement policies are more likely to be introduced in states where there are more women in

parliament, after controlling for state and year ﬁxed eﬀects. But they explicitly recognize that the fraction of

women in parliament may be a proxy for women’s involvement in politics, more generally.

their serial number, and every third GP was reserved for a woman. This has resulted in a

dramatic increase in the number of women elected as Pradhan.

This policy was enacted ﬁve

years after a constitutional amendment that gave substantial power to the village councils to

deﬁne and implement local development projects, and maintain lo cal infrastructure, using state

funds. Thus, the GP Pradhan makes decisions about which public goods to provide, and where

to provide them. We conducted a detailed survey of all investments in local public goods in all

the GP of one district (Birbhum, in West Bengal), and we compare investments made in reserved

and unreserved GP. Since GP were randomly selected to be reserved for women, diﬀerences in

investment decisions can be conﬁdently attributed to the policy of mandated representation of

women.

The results suggest that reservation does indeed aﬀect policy. Women participate more in the

political process in GP that are reserved for women. In those GP, there are also signiﬁcantly more

investments in drinking water infrastructure, recycled fuel equipment, and road construction.

By contrast, in unreserved GP, there are signiﬁcantly more investments in education. Health

workers are monitored more closely in reserved GP, and teachers are monitored less closely.

These results are interesting in their own right, because they show that the reservation policy

did indeed modify policy making. We can in addition exploit speciﬁc features of the reservation

legislation to investigate whether its eﬀects can be attributed to the gender of the Pradhan,

rather than to other consequences of reserving seats. We speciﬁcally investigate whether the

results can be explained by the fact that women are inexp erienced, that they may be perceived

as less likely to be re-elected, and that they tend to come from a more disadvantaged background

than men.

These results thus indicate that a politician’s gender does inﬂuence policy decisions. More

generally, they provide new evidence on the political process. In particular, they provide strong

evidence, based on a randomized experiment, that the identity of a decision maker does inﬂuence

policy decisions. This provides empirical support to political economy models that seek to enrich

the Downsian model (Alesina (1988), Osborne and Slivinski (1996), Besley and Coate (1997)).

The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 describes the political context, the

policy, and the data set. Section 3 reviews the literature and discusses how political reservations

In West Bengal, only 6% of Pradhan were women after the 1993 election.

for women could aﬀect policy outcomes. Section 4 discusses these intervening mechanisms: it

compares the characteristics of male and female Pradhan, and shows that the reservation policy

did aﬀect women’s political participation. Section 5 presents the central results of the paper,

the diﬀerence in public goods provisions in reserved and unreserved GP. Section 6 examines

whether this diﬀerence can be mostly attributed to the eﬀect of the policy on the gender of the

Pradhan. Section 7 concludes.

2 The Policy and Design of the Study

2.1 The Panchayat System in West Bengal

The Panchayat is a system of village level (Gram Panchayat), block level (Panchayat Samiti), and

district level (Zilla Parishad) councils, elected by the people, responsible for the administration

of local public goods. The Panchayat system has existed formally in most of the major states of

India since the early 1950’s. However, in most states, the system was not an eﬀective body of

governance. Elections were not held and the Panchayats did not assume any active role (Ghatak

and Ghatak 1999). This changed in West Bengal in 1977, when the Left Front Government

gained power on a platform of agrarian and political reform. The most important part of the

land reform was tenancy reform, which enabled tenants to register and restricted the eviction

of registered tenants (Banerjee, Gertler and Ghatak 1998). The major political reform was to

give life to a three-tiered Panchayat electoral system. The ﬁrst election took place in 1978 and

elections have taken place at ﬁve year intervals ever since. The ﬁrst election took place in the

middle of a major political and social upheaval resulting from the land reform, which arguably

allowed the Panchayat to assume an important political role, independent of the traditional

landowning class. This may account for the importance of the institution in West Bengal,

compared to most other states of India (Ghatak and Ghatak 1999).

Each Gram Panchayat (GP) encompasses 10 to 12 villages and a population of about 10,000

people. The GP do not have jurisdiction over urban areas, which are administered by separate

municipalities. Voters elect a council, which then elects among its members a Pradhan (chief)

and an Uppa-Pradhan (subchief). The council takes decision by majority voting (the Pradhan

does not have veto power). The Pradhan, however, is the only member of the council with a full-

time appointment. The major responsibilities of the GP are to administer local infrastructure:

repair public buildings (such as schools), maintain and construct drinking water and irrigation

facilities, excavate ponds (used for bathing, ﬁshing and irrigation), and maintain and construct

roads. The main source of ﬁnancing for these projects are state grants (the 73d amendment

stipulates that the ultimate objective is that 40% of the each State’s budget is to be spent by

the Panchayats). Until 1992, district funds were distributed through “schemes” earmarked for

a speciﬁc purpose. In 1992, the 73rd amendment to the Constitution of India established the

framework of a three-tiered Panchayat System with regular elections throughout India. It gave

the GP the primary responsibility for implementing development programs, as well as identifying

the needs of the villages under its jurisdiction. The main source of ﬁnancing is still the state,

but the money which was previously earmarked for speciﬁc uses is now allocated through four

broad schemes. Money is allocated under the Jawhar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) scheme for work in

public infrastructure. Second, there is a separate scheme for drinking water projects. Third, GP

have the responsibility to identify beneﬁciaries of social programs and disburse funds (widow’s

pension, relief, etc.), and receive funds for this purpose. Finally, the GP receives money for

its own operation (salary of secretary, honorarium for the Pradhan, building maintenance, etc.)

The GP was also given the right to collect income on its own, through taxation of assets, and the

establishment of collective ﬁsheries. According to balance sheets which we could collect in 40

GP the JRY accounts for 30% of total GP income, the drinking water scheme, 5%, the welfare

programs, 15%, the grant for GP functioning, 33%, and the GP own revenue for 8%.

Following the 73rd amendment, the GP was given additional responsibilities in West Bengal.

First, they were entrusted to establish and administer informal education centers (called SSK),

an alternative form of education for children who do not attend school (a non-qualiﬁed instructor

teaches children three hours a day in a temporary building or outdoors). They must also oversee

adult literacy programs. Most importantly, since May 1998, they are required to organize two

meetings per year, called “Gram Samsad”. These are meetings of villagers and village heads

in which all voters may participate (one Gram Samsad is organized for each 700 voters). The

GP council submits the proposed budget to the Gram Samsad, and reports on their activities

in the previous six months. Gram Samsads have been regularly held in most locations since

September 1998. While attendance is far from universal (16% of eligible participants), a study

of 20 Gram Samsad meetings by Ghatak and Ghatak (1999) shows that the meetings give rise

to active debates over the kinds of projects that should be undertaken and the eﬀectiveness of

implementation of past projects, as well as charges of corruption and mismanagement.

The GP has no direct control over the appointment of formal teachers or health workers. It

is, however, supposed to monitor their performance. It also helps organize health information

campaigns and immunizations. Finally, it is responsible for organizing women’s organizations

and committees for the management of community-based ﬁsheries, forests, drinking water in-

frastructure, and schools.

2.2 Reservation for Women

In 1992, the 73rd amendment provided that one third of the seats in all Panchayat councils as

well as one third of the position of Pradhan must be reserved for women. Seats and Pradhan’s

position were also reserved for the two disadvantaged minorities in India, “scheduled castes” (SC)

and “scheduled tribes” (ST), which mandated representation proportional to each minority’s

population share in each district. States were asked to modify their electoral rules to conform

to this amendment.

In West Bengal, the Panchayat Constitution rule was modiﬁed in 1993, and reserved one

third of the position of councilors in each GP to women: in a third of the villages in each GP,

only women could be candidate for the position of councillor for the area. The proportion of

women elected to Panchayat councils increased to 36% after the 1993 election. The experience

was considered a disappointment, however, because very few women (196 out of 3,324 GP)

advanced to the position of Pradhan, which is the only one that yields eﬀective power (Kanango

(1998)).

To conform to the 73d amendment, the Panchayat Constitution Rules of West Bengal were

again modiﬁed in April 1998 (Government of West Bengal 1998). In addition of the reservation

at the village level within each GP, one third of GP were selected to be reserved for a female

Pradhan: in those GP, the council members had to elect one of their female members as Pradhan.

Likewise, a proportion of GP equal to the share of the share of SC and ST in the population

had to be reserved for SC and ST. A speciﬁc set of rules ensured a random selection of GP

where the oﬃce of Pradhan were to be reserved for a woman. All GP in a district were ranked

in consecutive order, according to their serial legislative number (an administrative number pre-

dating this reform). They were then ranked in two separate lists, according to whether or not

the seats had been reserved for a SC/ST or not (these reservations were also chosen randomly,

following a similar method). Using these lists, every third GP starting with the ﬁrst on the list

was reserved for a woman for the 1998 election.

From discussions with the government oﬃcial at the Panchayat Directorate who devised

the system and district oﬃcials who implemented in individual districts, it appears that these

instructions were successfully implemented throughout the state. More importantly, in the

district we study, we could verify that the policy was strictly implemented. After sorting the

GP into those reserved for SC/ST and those not so reserved, we could reconstruct the entire list

of GP reserved for a woman by sorting all GP by their serial number (allocated several years

before the law was passed), and selecting every third GP starting from the ﬁrst in each list. This

veriﬁes that the allocation of GP to the reserved list was indeed random, as intended. Table

1 indicates the number of female Pradhan is reserved and unreserved GP. All Pradhan in GP

reserved for a woman are female. Only 6.5% of them are female in unreserved GP. The policy

thus had a large eﬀect on the proportion of female Pradhan in the district.

2.3 Data Collection and Empirical Strategy

In the summer of 2000, we conducted a survey of all GP in the district of Birbhum, West Bengal.

Birbhum is located in the western part of West Bengal, about 125 miles from the state capital,

Calcutta. At the time of the 1991 census, it had a population of 2.56 million. Agriculture is

the main economic activity, and rice is the main crop cultivated. The male and female literacy

rates were 50% and 37%, respectively, lower than the West Bengal average of 67% and 47%.

The district is known to have a relatively well-functioning Panchayat system.

There are 166 GP in Birbhum, of which ﬁve were reserved for pre-testing, leaving 161 GP

in our study. Table 2 shows means of the most relevant village variables collected by the 1991

census of India in reserved and unreserved GP, and their diﬀerences. Panel A shows GP level

variables, and panel B shows village level variables.

As expected given the random selection

For the next election (in 2003), every third GP starting with the second on the list was reserved for a woman,

etc... The Panchayat Constitution rule has actual tables indicating the ranks of GP to be reserved in each election.

The standard errors, like in the rest of the paper, are adjusted for clustering at the GP level, but the statistical

of GP, there are no signiﬁcant diﬀerences between reserved and unreserved GP. Reserved GP

have a somewhat smaller total population, but this diﬀerence is not signiﬁcant. At the GP

level, the total number of health facilities, the number of public health facilities (hospital and

primary health centers and subcenters), and the number of schools of all types is very similar in

reserved and unreserved GP. Unreserved GP are marginally more likely to have a hospital. At

the village level as well, all variables are very similar in reserved and unreserved GP. Note that

very few villages (3% among the unreserved GP) have tap water, the most common sources of

drinking water being handpumps and tubewells. Most villages are accessible only by a dirt road.

91% of villages have a primary school but very few have any other type of school. Irrigation is

important: 43% of the cultivated land is irrigated (some land is irrigated in all villages). Very

few villages (8%) have any public health facility.

We collected the data for this study in two stages. First, we conducted an interview with the

GP Pradhan. We asked each a set of questions about his or her family background, education,

previous political experience, and political ambitions, as well as a set of questions about the

activities of the GP since his or her election in May 1998. We then completed a survey of three

villages in the GP: two villages randomly selected in each GP, plus the village in which the

GP Pradhan resides. During the village interview, we drew a resource map of the village with

a group of 10 to 20 villagers. The map featured all the available infrastructure in the village,

and we asked whether each of the available equipment items had b een built or repaired since

May 1998. Previous experience of one of the authors, as well as experimentation during the

pre-testing p eriod, suggest that this method yields extremely accurate information about the

village. We then conducted an additional interview with the most active participants of the

mapping exercise, in which we asked in more detail about investments in various public goods.

For all outcomes for which it was possible, we collected the same information at the GP level

and at the village level. The village level information is likely to be more reliable, because it

is not provided by the Pradhan, and because for villagers, recalling investments made in their

village in the last two years was easy. However, the information given by the GP head refers to

investment in the entire GP, and is thus free from sampling error. Therefore, when an outcome

insigniﬁcance of these diﬀerences does not depend on this correction.

The questionnaires are available upon request or on line at http://web.mit.edu/eduﬂo/www/.

is available at both levels, we perform the analysis separately for both, and compare the results.

Due to the randomization built into the policy, the basic empirical strategy is straightforward.

Under the assumption that the reservation does not aﬀect investments in unreserved GP, the

reduced form eﬀect of the policy can be obtained by comparing the mean of the outcomes of

interest in reserved and unreserved GP. Denoting Y

the value of the outcome of interest (say,

investment in drinking water between 1998 and 2000) and R

a dummy equal to 1 if the GP is

reserved for a woman, this is simply:

E[Y

= 1] − E[Y

= 0]

In the village level regressions, the standard errors are adjusted for possible correlation

within GP using the Moulton correction (Moulton (1986)).

Unless otherwise indicated, we run

village level regressions using only the data for the two villages we selected randomly, since the

Pradhan’s villages are not random and may be selected diﬀerently in reserved and unreserved

GP.

Since all the reserved GP have a female Pradhan, and only 6.5% of the unreserved GP do,

this reduced form coeﬃcient is very close to the coeﬃcient that one would obtain by using the

reservation policy as an instrument for the Pradhan’s gender.

We will therefore focus on the

reduced form estimates, which are directly interpretable as the eﬀect of the reservation policy.

When interpreting these results, it should be kept in mind, that women elected as Pradhan diﬀer

from men in many important dimensions, other than gender. In particular, they are much more

likely to be new leaders, and they are probably less likely to be re-elected in the next election.

The reduced form estimates capture all these potential eﬀects.

A very interesting feature of the experiment in West Bengal is that it is possible to try to

disentangle the eﬀect of gender per se from these other eﬀects of reserving electoral seats to

speciﬁc groups.

The outcomes we consider are jointly determined, since they are linked by a budget constraint. However,

b ecause the regressor is the same in all outcome equations, a joint estimation of the system of equations would

pro duce coeﬃcients and standard errors numerically identical to OLS estimation equation by equation.

The instrumental variable estimate would simply be the reduced form estimate scaled up by a factor of 1.075.

(The ratio of the reduced form eﬀect and the diﬀerence in the probability that a woman is elected in reserved vs.

unreserved GP, which is equal to 93%

Recall that the reservation rotates: seats that were reserved in 1998 will not be reserved again in 2003.

First, we can control for whether the Pradhan is new or not. It would not be legitimate

to compare investments in all unreserved GP where Pradhan are new to those in reserved GP:

the fact that the Pradhan is new may reﬂect unobserved characteristics of the GP, and this

non-random sample selection would bias the results. There is, however, a random subset of

unreserved GP where the Pradhan is always new in oﬃce. Individuals may run for a council

seat only in the village in which she or he resides. Once elected, the councilors choose one of

them to be Pradhan. As part of the reservation scheme, one third of council seats (identiﬁed by

village) were reserved for women: thus, if the previous councilor was a man, and his seat was

reserved for a woman in the 1998 election, we can be sure that the Pradhan for that GP will be

new to oﬃce. We can therefore compare women Pradhan to this subgroup of new Pradhan, to

control for the fact that the Pradhan is new in oﬃce. Clearly, this does not fully control for the

Pradhan’s experience: even new Pradhan could be experienced politicians.

Second, we can control for whether the Pradhan is likely to be re-elected in 2003. Every

third GP starting with the second in the list will be reserved for a female Pradhan for the 2003

election. Pradhan in those GP should realize that they will not be able to stand for re-election

as Pradhan (if their particular seat is not reserved, they may still be able to run for a position

of member of the GP council). We therefore restrict the sample to GP reserved in 1998 and

those which will be reserved in 2003, to examine whether and to what extent the diﬀerences we

observe are due to the fact that women may not think they have a chance to be reelected.

Again, men could still have a longer horizon in oﬃce than women, if they plan to be elected on

another position or be elected again in 10 years.

Finally, we take advantage of the reservation of about 44% of the seats to SC and ST. These

reservation were also selected randomly, and within each list, one third of positions were reserved

for women. Irrespective of their gender, all the leaders elected under this reservation policy tend

to be new leaders and to be elected in large part due to the quota system. They also tend to

There are other reasons why a Pradhan may not be able to be a candidate in the next election: His GP could

b e reserved for a SC or ST Pradhan. We do not exploit this because the system of SC reservation is based on a

table of random numbers, so it is much more diﬃcult for a Pradhan (and us) to ﬁgure out whether the seat will

indeed be reserved. His seat could also become reserved. We do not have the list of serial numbers within GP, so

we could not exploit this either. This does not invalidate our strategy: it is clear that in the subset of GP to be

reserved in 2003, the term limit does apply for all Pradhan.

be poor, and to come from small villages. Therefore, we restrict the sample to GP that are

reserved for SC and ST. Remaining diﬀerences between investments in GP reserved for SC/ST

and those reserved for female SC/ST should be largely attributable to gender.

3 Why Would Mandated Representation of Women Aﬀect Pol-

icy Decisions?

Women and men have diﬀerent policy priorities. In developed countries, women are more likely

to support liberal policies, a diﬀerence known as the “gender gap”. The composition of the

voter pool is therefore likely to aﬀect policy outcomes.

In developing countries, women’s and

men’s roles are diﬀerent, and they may therefore have diﬀerent needs and favor diﬀerent types

of investment. The primary responsibilities of women in rural West Bengal, besides working

on the ﬁelds, are to fetch water and fuel and to take care of children. Child health has been

shown to be more responsive to women’s income than to men’s income (see for example Thomas

(1990), Thomas (1994), and Duﬂo (2000)), which indicates that women are more concerned

than men about child health. It has also been suggested that the degree of women’s involvement

in collective decision making aﬀects policy decisions. For example, a study of rules set up by

village forest conservation committees in India shows that rules are very diﬀerent in villages

where women participated in their elaboration (Agarwal (1997)).

However, the fact that men and women have diﬀerent preferences is not enough to imply

that policies would be inﬂuenced by direct manipulation of the gender of representatives through

quotas. In a Coasian world, public good allocation should be unaﬀected (the eﬃcient allocation

should be achieved both before and after the policy). The additional bargaining power the

policy confers to women should translate into higher transfers to women. Even if these transfers

are not available, if the candidates could commit during the electoral campaign to a set of

policies, and if candidates knew the preferences of the voters, then electoral incentives would

cause candidates to commit to the policy bundle favored by a majority of electors. In this case,

Lott and Kenny (1999) show that giving women the right to vote increased the size of state governments.

They argue that women’s preference for bigger government stems from their greater need for insurance. Edlund

and Pande (2000) suggest that the gender gap is indeed related to women’s expected need for insurance: the

gender gap is bigger in states where divorce is easier.

the gender of the elected oﬃcial would not aﬀect policy. There are therefore two main lines

of argument why mandated representation of women could aﬀect policy decisions. The ﬁrst is

based on the idea that elected representatives cannot commit ex ante to a set of policies. In

this context, political reservations for women aﬀect both the gender of the politicians and its

selection. Pande (1999) discusses most of these arguments in the context of the reservations

for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the legislative assemblies in India, and presents

evidence that the reservations did aﬀect outcomes. The second is based on the idea that the

presence of women representatives aﬀects the mechanism by which preferences are aggregated.

Empirical evidence suggests that the preferences of legislators strongly aﬀect the decisions

they make. For example, Levitt (1996) shows that senators’ individual ideology is the single

most important factor explaining the way they vote. If the politicians do not commit ex ante

to a set of policies, the identity of the elected oﬃcial will determine policy decisions (Alesina

(1988), Osborne and Slivinski (1996), Besley and Coate (1997)). Constraining the candidate to

be a woman may then aﬀect policy decisions, if the overlap between women’s and men’s policy

preferences is not exact. In the US, it has been shown repeatedly that female legislators have

diﬀerent policy priorities than men (see, e.g. Thomas (1991),Carroll (1994),Thomas (1991)).

The idea that women tend to be more public spirited, less corrupt, and more “fair” is often

advanced as an argument in favor of active measures to facilitate women’s participation in

political decisions (World-Bank (2001), Dollar et al. (1999)). Women attach more importance

to, and spend more time advocating, women’s issues (abortion, equal opportunity) and child

welfare issues (such as child support), while men concentrate on business and economic policy.

Thus, the number of female legislators predicts whether policies preferred more by women than

men will be adopted (Berkman and O’Connor (1993), Besley and Case (1997)).

The reservation policy does not aﬀect only the Pradhan’s gender, however. It aﬀects the

process by which she is chosen. First, since there were very few women active in politics before

the reservation policy was enacted, women elected under the policy are less likely to be incum-

bents. This could have positive or negative eﬀects: incumbents may have more clout and know

the system better. Alternatively, newly elected leaders may be more willing to start more new

Saltzstin (1986) also shows that municipalities with women as mayors tend to have a higher proportion of

women in municipal employment, which suggests that women placed in power try to act in women’s interest.

projects.

Second, the reservation constrains voters to choose among a limited set of candidates. Even

if there is not a competent woman, they have to choose one in reserved GP (while they are

always free to choose a competent woman in unreserved GP if there is no competent man). This

may thus aﬀect the leader’s quality. The average woman is also less educated than the average

man, less assertive, and less likely to have worked outside her home.

Third, women may have little hope of being re-elected outside the quota system, and since

the seats are reserved by rotation, they may have less political ambition. This is potentially

important, as the desire to be re-elected may provide an incentive for the elected representatives

to behave while in oﬃce.

Khemani (2000) suggests that Indian voters are more “vigilant”

in state elections than in national elections. The Gram Samsad (village meeting) institution

ensures a high level of accountability for GP Pradhan, which suggests that the need to please

constituents in order to be re-elected may aﬀect Pradhan’ activities.

Fourth, the reservation policy may alter political competition. For example, if women ﬁelded

by parties on the right were known to be less demanding for women’s rights than women ﬁelded

by parties on the left, this may push some marginal male voters toward the right. It could thus

aﬀect policy decisions even on dimensions that are not directly relevant to women.

It has been suggested that all of these factors may not be relevant in the context of reservation

in India, because most women representatives act simply as proxy for their husbands. However,

women’s quotas could aﬀect policy decisions even if elected women had the same preferences

as elected men, or if all elected oﬃcials attempt to maximize the same social welfare function:

the sex of the Pradhan may eﬀect how information is transmitted. Both legally and in practice,

the most important role of the Pradhan is to aggregate information and decide how to spend

relevant resources. This is done in the Gram Samsad, and during oﬃce hours at which the

Pradhan meet with villagers. However, the participation of women at the Gram Samsad is

very limited (only 9% of participants were women in the 20 Gram Samsad studied by Ghatak

and Ghatak (1999)), and even when women are present, they rarely raise questions. The fact

that a Pradhan is a woman may then aﬀect the participation of other women to this process

Besley and Case (1995) present evidence that this eﬀect is important for governors in the United States.

Governors who face term limits make decisions that are less likely to please voters (such as increasing taxes).

of aggregating information. The fact that a woman is present in a position of authority may

encourage other women to raise issues, either during the Gram Samsad meetings or during her

oﬃce hours. Their remarks may be less likely to be taken desultorily.

Enabling women to

express their concerns may have very important eﬀects on policy, even if the leader is not herself

very sensitive to women’s issues (and even if she is a proxy for her husband). Banerjee and

Somanathan (2001) show that a leader who is more aware of the underlying preferences of her

constituents is more likely to get them to talk and more likely to get information from them

that materially alters her decision. Thus the fact that a woman leader knows the other women

better than the male leader she replaces, will help her elucidate better their needs, even if she

is not particularly inclined towards women’s causes herself.

In the next section, we provide evidence on some of these intervening mechanisms: the

characteristics of the female Pradhan (including their background, their political aﬃliation,

their prior political experience and their political ambitions) and the eﬀect of the gender of the

Pradhan on women’s participation. In section 5, we turn to the main question of interest: does

the gender of the Pradhan aﬀect the the provision of public goods in the community?

4 Leaders and Voices: Characteristics of Female Pradhan and

Political Participation of Women

4.1 Characteristics of Female Pradhan

Table 3 presents diﬀerences by gender in the Pradhan’s background (panel A), her previous

political involvement and political ambition (panel B), and other’s perceptions of her. Column

(1) presents the average in reserved GP, and column (2) presents the average in unreserved GP.

Column (3) presents the diﬀerence. Standard errors are in parentheses. Female Pradhan are

signiﬁcantly less educated and less likely to be literate. They also come from a more disadvan-

taged background, which may be surprising: they are more likely to be oﬃcially classiﬁed as

There is some evidence indicating this may be important: In the US, Thomas (1991) show that the degree

to which a woman legislator supports women’s issues depends on the number of other women in the assembly, or

the existence of a female caucus. In India, the study of joint forest management committee by Agarwal (1997)

referred to earlier also indicates that women talk more when there are more women in the meetings.

being below the poverty line, and they own fewer durable household goods.

They come from

smaller villages than men. This does not contradict the fact that GP reserved for women are no

diﬀerent from unreserved GP. Men often come from the biggest villages within their GP, while

women come from villages that are similar to the average village. Our interviewers are more

likely to report that female Pradhan are shy in answering the questions (and that someone else

may be answering on their behalf).

The results in panel B of table 3 conﬁrm that female Pradhan have less political experience

prior to the 1998 election. 89% of women (and 57% of men) holding reserved positions had not

been elected to any Panchayat position and most had not even participated in any Panchayat

activity. None of them had served as Pradhan (12% of men had). Women are only slightly

less likely to have received any training than men Pradhan, which reﬂects governments eﬀorts

to train the new Pradhan and counselors elected under the reservation rule (Kanango (1998)).

They are more likely to be helped by their spouse (43% of the women in reserved positions report

that they are helped by their spouse, compared with 13% of the men). 17% are the spouse of a

former Panchayat counselor or Pradhan. The worry that women may be their husband’s proxy

is thus not without foundation. Women are also more likely to claim that they will not run

again.

The reservation policy does not seem to aﬀect party aﬃliation: the percentage of Pradhan

in each political group (left front, right, and Congress) is identical in reserved and unreserved

GP.

4.2 Eﬀects on the Political Participation of Women

Table 4 displays the eﬀect of having a woman Pradhan on the political participation of women.

The percentage of women among participants in the Gram Samsad is signiﬁcantly higher when

the Pradhan is a woman (increasing from 6.9% to 9.9%). Since reservation does not aﬀect the

percentage of eligible voters attending the Gram Samsad, this corresponds to a net increase in

the participation of women, and a decline in the participation of men. This is consistent with

the idea that political communication is inﬂuenced by the fact that citizens and leaders are of

We asked whether the Pradhan’s household owned a television, had electricity in the home, had a telephone,

a bicycle, a motorcycle, and a car. The durable goods variable is simply the sum of all of these variables.

the same sex. Women are also more likely to ask a question at the Gram Samsad (the proportion

increases from 0.29 to 0.38, although the diﬀerence is not signiﬁcant at the 95% level). Finally,

women in villages with reserved Pradhan are twice as likely to have addressed a request or a

complaint to the GP Pradhan in the last 6 months, and this diﬀerence is signiﬁcant.

The fact

that the Pradhan is a woman therefore signiﬁcantly increases the involvement of women in the

aﬀairs of the GP.

When women had raised an issue, we asked the villagers which issue they had raised. Our

questions were open ended, and we classiﬁed them ex-post into broad categories. We then re-

surveyed a random sub-sample of 48 villages, and asked about issues raised by men. Table

5 shows the range of questions, the fraction of total questions concerning each issue asked

by women (in column (1)), and by men (in column (2)). Drinking water and roads were by

far the issues most frequently raised by women (26% and 24% of the questions, respectively).

The next most important issue was welfare programs (these programs mainly target women:

they are maternity grants, widows’ pension, and old age pensions), followed by housing and

electricity. Road improvement is also the issue most frequently raised by men (22%). Three

other issues are raised relatively frequently by men: irrigation (17%), education (14%), and

drinking water (14%). This is consistent with the evidence in Ghatak and Ghatak (1999) on the

questions raised (by men) at 21 Gram Samsads in West Bengal: The questions that appeared

most frequently have to do with mis-management or corruption in program implementation (in

about half the villages), irrigation needs, road building, and the choice of program beneﬁciaries

or of project locations. Road building thus seems to be a concern common to men and women:

road construction projects are employment generating activities (especially for women), and

poor roads also make communication very diﬃcult during the rainy season. Women are more

concerned about drinking water than men, and less concerned about irrigation and education.

In the next section, we examine whether the gender of the Pradhan aﬀects the quantity and

the type of public goods provided and if the eﬀect is consistent with the preferences described

above.

In the subsample of villages which we conducted follow up surveys we also asked whether men had brought

up any issue in the last 6 months. In all cases but one (a reserved GP), they had.

5 Eﬀects of the policy on Public Goods Provision

5.1 Public Action

In table 6, we examine whether the level of organization in the village is aﬀected by the reser-

vation policy. We have seen above that women were more active politically in villages where

the Pradhan is a woman. Is it because female Pradhan are generally more eﬀective at inducing

collective participation? To answer this question, we examine variables that reﬂect the extent

of organizations that the GP is supposed to sponsor: number of women’s organizations, number

of water and forest management committees, number of village education committees, areas

brought under social ﬁshery and social forestry, and proper organization of the Gram Samsads.

For none of these dimensions of organization is there a signiﬁcant diﬀerence between male and

female GP.

For a subset of GP (100), we collected information on their own revenue collection. GP

depend mostly on the state for resources (less than 8% of their budget come from GP revenue

collection), but they are authorized to collect revenues locally. Even after controlling for the GP

population, the amount of funds collected by the GP is signiﬁcantly smaller in GP reserved for

women. Tax collections as well as revenues from other sources (ﬁsheries, forestry, ponds, etc...),

are smaller in GP headed by women. The diﬀerence in tax collection is small compared to other

source revenue, which, in GP headed by women, is only half as large as in non-reserved GP. One

possible explanation for these results is that revenue collection is far from being straightforward:

collecting revenues requires eﬀective persuasion power, with respect to the individuals who owns

the taxable properties, and to the representative of the villages where the GP ponds and forest

are located.

GP, however, depend mostly on the state for resources, allocated largely in proportion to the

GP population. In the 40 GP for which we have complete budget data (including government

funds), the total budget is not signiﬁcantly diﬀerent in male and female GP.

5.2 Public Good Investments

Table 7 presents the eﬀects of the Pradhan’s gender on all public good investments made by

the GP since the last election, in May 1998. As we aggregated investments in categories, these

regressions reﬂect all the data we collected on public good investments. We present both village

and GP level regressions. The main results are consistent across the GP and village level data.

The gender of the GP Pradhan aﬀects the type of public goods provided.

Both at the GP level and at the village level, there is signiﬁcantly more investment in drinking

water equipment and roads in GP where the Pradhan is a woman. In addition, there is also more

investment in other labor intensive projects (culvert and minor irrigation canals), a variable we

have only at the GP level. The magnitude of these eﬀects is large: there is almost twice as

much investment in drinking water equipment in GP where the Pradhan is a woman, and the

roads are almost twice as likely to be in good shape. In all GP where the Pradhan is a woman,

tubewells were built, and labor intensive construction work was undertaken. Major roads are

20% more likely likely to have been repaired in women’s GP (dirt roads were repaired in all

GP).

The village level regression (though not the GP regression) also shows a very large diﬀerence

in the introduction of biogas projects (biogas projects were introduced in 6% of the unreserved

GP, and 26% of the reserved GP). Biogas projects are installations that produce methane gas,

used for cooking or lighting, from animal waste. They are a substitute for cooking fuel and

electricity. Collecting cooking fuel, as well as water, is primarily a woman’s task, and in Birbhum,

where the forest cover is very limited, obtaining wood can be particularly diﬃcult.

Both the GP and the village level regression show a negative (and large in the village level

regression) but insigniﬁcant impact of having a woman Pradhan on investment in sanitation.

This might seem somewhat surprising, but it should be noted that women never raised sanitation

as an issue.

Finally, there is less investment in informal education for children in GP headed by women.

Since 1998, the GP have been given the responsibility of organizing informal education centers,

by hiring and paying someone without formal qualiﬁcations to teach children not attending

school in a temporary building (or outdoors). They receive the authorization to set a center up

from the higher level of the panchayat or from the block level administration. Both at the GP

and the village level, the number of centers is negatively associated with the fact that the woman

is a Pradhan. The coeﬃcient is signiﬁcant at the 95% only in the GP level regression, but the

point estimate in the village level regression is large in magnitude: villages located in GP where

the Pradhan is a woman are only half as likely to have an informal education center than villages

in GP where the Pradhan is a man. To conﬁrm the validity of these results, we also regressed

the number of teachers, teachers per capita, children, and children per capita, at the informal

center (the regressions are omitted to save space). At the GP level, the coeﬃcient of the woman

dummy is signiﬁcantly negative for all these variables. There is no diﬀerence in investments in

the repair of school buildings. However, in GP headed by women, there is more investment in

buildings used for adult education (of which women are more often beneﬁciaries). Note that

there are almost no investments in the repair of the adult literacy centers in GP headed by

males, even though all GP receive an allocation speciﬁcally earmarked for adult education.

To shed some light on this result, we restrict the sample to GP where the Pradhan is literate

(this result has to be taken with care, this the fact that the Pradhan is literate is certainly not

random): the eﬀect is smaller among literate Pradhan, suggesting that some of the negative

eﬀect of women on children’s education may be related to the fact that they are themselves less

educated.

These results suggest that the reservation policy has important eﬀects on policy decisions

at the local level. These eﬀects are consistent with the policy priorities expressed by women

(drinking water, road and power were the highest priorities of women, and education was a low

priority of women, and a priority of men) and with the view that women’s priorities are closely

linked with their role in the household. It should be noted that women’s main preoccupations

are also important issues for men. If we combine women’s and men’s requests (and give an equal

weight to both genders), drinking water and roads are by far the most important issues. The

decisions in reserved GP may thus correspond better to the entire’s village preferences.

Female GP, on the other hand, are no more likely than male GP to have had a literacy campaign since 1998.

It is unfortunately not practical to assign a monetary value to these investments, and thus to compare them.

The fact that most investments are equal or greater in women’s GP suggest that women may be more eﬃcient

than men in spending the available resources.

5.3 Inﬂuence

The GP has no control over the establishment of health centers, or administrative appointments

such as health workers, doctors, or school teachers.

However, it is supposed to exercise some

control over health workers and teachers, although in practice its inﬂuence over them is often

limited. Likewise, they have no direct control over the establishment of pre-primary child care

centers (Angan Wadi), which are controlled by a centrally administered program (The Integrated

Child Development Service), but they may seek to inﬂuence their placement. In table 8, we

examine whether the gender of the Pradhan also aﬀects outcomes over which she yields only

indirect inﬂuence. The ﬁrst two rows indicate that the gender of the Pradhan has no inﬂuence on

the opening of pre-schools. There were slightly fewer than two centers open per GP on average

since 1998, but they were equally distributed in female-headed and male-headed GP. This is

somewhat surprising, as child care is generally thought of as a woman’s priority.

The next two rows conﬁrm the results we obtained regarding informal education. Male

Pradhan are much more likely to report that the village education committee (instituted in all

GP since 1993) is eﬀective. Since this is the Pradhan’s own report, this could indicate that men

are more likely to report that they have inﬂuence. The next row suggests that the villagers do

not ﬁnd male Pradhan more eﬀective in controlling the primary schools. However, when asked

which problems they thought were present in the primary schools, men were more likely to

report low teacher turnout as a problem. Since this is one of the principal problems of primary

education, and one that eﬀective monitoring by village institutions could most likely aﬀect,

this suggests that male Pradhan are better informed, and may be more concerned, than female

Pradhan about the quality of education in the GP. This does not seem to be due to the fact

that schools perform less well in GP headed by men: when asked, the villagers are equally likely

to report that teacher attendance is a problem.

The next rows suggest that the opposite is true for health workers. The number of visits

by health workers to the village in the last six months is signiﬁcantly higher when the Pradhan

is a woman. This diﬀerence is entirely attributable to a diﬀerence in the number of visits to

villages that do receive visits by health workers, not a diﬀerence in the number of villages in a

We collected data on these variables and veriﬁed that the number of health workers or teachers is not aﬀected

by the gender of the Pradhan.

GP that receive visits. This suggests the diﬀerence may be due to active monitoring: Pradhan

have no inﬂuence on the route of village health workers, but female Pradhan seem to be eﬀective

in getting health workers to actually visit villages they are supposed to visit.

5.4 Do Women Invest Less in Their Own Villages?

Our last set of results in this section uses data on investments in the Pradhan’s village, which

we have not exploited thus far. The interpretation of these results is not as straightforward as

in the rest of the paper, since the Pradhan’s village is not chosen randomly, meaning sample

selection may be diﬀerent in reserved and non-reserved villages. As we have seen above, male

Pradhan come from bigger villages, while female Pradhan, especially those whose husbands

are not politically inﬂuential (i.e., those who are not “helped in their jobs”) come from more

ordinary villages.

Nevertheless, the results in this data are striking. In table 9, we use as a dependent variable

the same investment variables as in table 7. We run the following regression:

= C

+ α

+ β

+ γ

∗ P

+ δPopulation + ²

where y

is the investment in good k in village j of Panchayat i, R

is a dummy that indicates

whether the GP is reserved for a woman, and P

is a dummy that indicates whether village j

is the Pradhan’s village. Thus, β

is the expected diﬀerence between investment in Pradhan’s

and non Pradhan’s village in unreserved GP, and γ

indicates whether the diﬀerence is the same

among reserved GP. We control for the size of the villages, which is systematically diﬀerent in

Pradhan’s village, and in men’s village in particular. Columns (1) and (2) of table 9 report β

and

. The ﬁrst striking fact is that almost all investments are signiﬁcantly larger in the Pradhan’s

village. These diﬀerences are usually larger than the constant, indicating that the Pradhan’s

village receives more than twice as much as other villages receive, even after controlling for their

size. Second, the coeﬃcient of the interaction between the Pradhan’s village and female Pradhan

is negative for all outcomes but one, and signiﬁcant for three individual outcomes as well as for

all investments taken together (shown in the last line). The coeﬃcients of the interaction are

of the same magnitude as the coeﬃcient of the direct Pradhan eﬀect: there is no diﬀerence in

investment between the Pradhan’s village and other villages when the Pradhan is a woman.

As we discussed in section 4, female Pradhan tend to come from smaller and poorer villages,

especially when they are not helped by their husband. This may account for the discrepancy

between male and female-headed Pradhan villages, even though we control for population size

in these regressions. To examine whether this is the case, we ran the same regressions using only

male Pradhan and Pradhan who are helped by their husbands. Female Pradhan who are helped

by their husbands come from villages which are similar to those of male Pradhan.

The results

are at least as strong in this subsample. This suggests that the coeﬃcients of the interaction

are not pure artifacts of a composition bias in the sample, and that female Pradhan do indeed

invest less in their own villages.

This diﬀerence may be explained by diﬀerent levels of political ambition among women and

men. To be re-elected, the Pradhan must ﬁrst be elected as a council member in his or her

own village. Because women are less likely to seek re-election, they need to please their own

electors less. Levitt (1996) shows that senators are more likely to cast votes beneﬁting their

own constituencies when an election is near. Alternatively, women may have a weak bargaining

position vis-a-vis the other GP member on the locations of these investments.

6 Separating Gender and other eﬀect of reservations

The results we discussed so far could be attributed to other characteristics of the newly elected

women. First, they are inexperienced politicians. Second, they are more likely to be perceived

(by themselves or others) as “lame ducks”. Finally, we have seen that they are poorer, and come

from smaller villages than men. All these factors may aﬀect their decisions. In this section, we

use speciﬁc reservation rules to control for these characteristics.

6.1 Women are new Pradhan

In our sample, all the women who were elected in reserved position are new to the position

of Pradhan, whereas 12% of male Pradhan have previously served as Pradhan. Males also

have more experience as member of the GP council. This could have a direct inﬂuence on the

The diﬀerence between the population of villages of male Pradhan and that of female Pradhan helped by

their husband is only 250, and is not signiﬁcant.

investments made by men and women: inexperience Pradhan may have a hard time achieving

their objectives. On the other hands, they may be more energetic and want to start new project.

They may also favor new projects, rather than continuing existing projects.

To investigate whether the eﬀects of reservation is in part due to the fact that women are

newly elected, we compare them to another set of Pradhan who were newly elected due the

reservation policy at the village level: we compare investments in reserved GP to those in GP

where the previous Pradhan was prevented from re-election because his village was reserved for

a woman.

These results are presented in column (2) of table 10. For comparison, column (1) reproduces

the results for the entire sample. In this sub-sample, all Pradhan are elected for the ﬁrst time.

Men are, nevertheless, more experienced politicians: they are still more likely than women to

have served in the GP council before, but the diﬀerence is now smaller (0.24 instead as 0.32

in the entire sample). The point estimate for all the other results are unaﬀected, except for

the probability that a metal road was repaired, where the diﬀerences between reserved and

unreserved GP falls from 0.18 to 0.09. The coeﬃcient on the quality of the roads in the village,

however, remains unchanged, suggesting that day-to-day repairs remain more frequent in villages

in reserved GP. This may suggest that repairing a main road is among the ﬁrst thing a new

Pradhan does. This may be a very public gesture, since it is at the top of the priority of both

men and women.

However, none of the other results change. This suggests that the eﬀect reservation for women

has on policy cannot entirely be attributed to the fact that these women are new Pradhan.

6.2 Women are lame ducks

In column (3) of table 10, we present the diﬀerence between GP reserved in 1998 and those who

will be reserved in 2003. In these GP, the Pradhan faces a term limit. We determine which GP

will be reserved in 2003 by following the allocation rule (which was strictly followed in 1998).

Of course, this does not necessarily imply that the Pradhan themselves eﬀectively realize that

the GP will be reserved for a woman. Moreover, men could have a longer time horizon for the

career than just the next election. In fact, Pradhan in GP that will be reserved in 2003 are still

more likely than women to say that they want to run for the GP council again (they can still

be a candidate for the council as long as their seat is not reserved).

The results for all other outcomes are essentially unaﬀected. With all the caveats mentioned

above, this still suggests that the results are not driven by women’s low immediate prospects.

6.3 Other eﬀects of reservation

It is also p ossible to control to some extent for these and other diﬀerences between men and

women, in particular for the fact that women tend to come from poorer families and smaller

villages, using minority reservations. Positions of Pradhan were reserved for Scheduled Castes

and Scheduled Tribes, proportional to their population in the district (34.5% and 11.5%, respec-

tively). The 1998 Panchayat Rules prescribe that the randomization for women be stratiﬁed:

among seats reserved for each group as well as among “general” seats, one third must be ran-

domly selected to be reserved for women. Column (4) in table 10 shows the diﬀerences female

and male GP in reserved GP. Since this policy was also enacted in 1998, most of the Pradhan

in GP reserved for SC and ST are new. Only 2% (one) of the male Pradhan in SC/ST GP

has previously served as Pradhan, and 22% have served as GP member. The diﬀerence in the

proportion of incumbents is thus much smaller (14%) than in the entire sample, and not sta-

tistically signiﬁcant. Men are still more likely to say that they may run again. Importantly,

among SC/ST Pradhan, women and men come from villages of the same size, and men are not

signiﬁcantly richer than women. They are, however, better educated.

In column (4) of table 10, we compare outcomes in GP reserved for SC or ST. The results

are very similar to what we found in all GP. The only notable exception is the weakening of the

eﬀect on the number of doctor visits in the village (which is due to the fact that even GP that

are unreserved for women, there are more visits by doctors in SC and ST villages).

The last row of table 9 examines whether, even in GP reserved for SC and ST, women are

less likely than men to invest in their own villages. The result is not changed: even in GP

reserved for SC or ST, men are more likely to invest in their own village, while women aren’t.

Irrespective of their gender, all SC/ST Pradhan are elected because of the quota system,

most of them have no experience, and women and men share similar social background. The

fact that most results remain unchanged suggest that the diﬀerence in public good investments

was a consequence of the Pradhan’s gender.

7 Conclusion

Mandated representation of women has important eﬀects on policy decisions in local government.

Women elected as leaders under the reservation policy invest more in public goods most

closely linked to women’s concerns: drinking water, fuel, and road construction. They also

appear to exercise inﬂuence over health workers to induce them to visit the villages more often.

The increase in investments in drinking water, fuel, and roads seems to come at least partly

at the expense of investments in informal schooling. Men invest more resources in informal

education centers, and seem also more aware of the need to exercise inﬂuence over teachers to

elicit more regular attendance. This relative lack of interest of women in charge for education

is not as surprising as the commonly held view that women strongly support everything that is

good for children might suggests: among the problems mentioned by women in the village we

surveyed, education appears relatively infrequently, whereas it is an important issue for men.

These results seems to be largely attributable to the eﬀect of the policy on the gender of

the Pradhan, rather than on its other eﬀects: with only two exceptions, the results are virtually

identical in the subsample of GP reserved for SC/ST, when we compare GP which will be

reserved in 2003 to those that were reserved in 1998, and when we compare GP reserved to

women to those where the Pradhan is also new due to the reservation policy.

Drinking water and irrigation, the two issues in which women invest more than men, are also

among men’s priorities. Leaders in reserved GP thus appear to better represent the preferences

of the entire community than leaders in unreserved GP.

These results contradict the simple intuition behind the Downsian model, or the idea that

political decisions are the outcomes of a Coasian bargaining process: in both of these views of

the world, the fact that a woman is the head of the GP should not inﬂuence policy decisions.

Indirectly, these results also conﬁrm that the panchayat has eﬀective control over the policy

decisions at the local level. These results suggest that direct manipulation of the identity of

the policy maker can have important eﬀects on policy. This has important implications beyond

reservation policy, suggesting that all mechanism that aﬀect politician’s identities (term limits,

eligibility conditions, etc) may aﬀect p olicy decisions. These results leave open the question of

whether this is due to the increased participation of women in the political process, or to the

fact that the decision maker’s preferences now reﬂect women’s preferences, rather than men’s.

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Table 1: Fraction of Women among Pradhans in Reserved and Unreserved GP

Reserved Non reserved Difference

GP GP

(1) (2) (3)

Total number 54 107

% Female 100 6.5 93.5

(3.38)

Table 2: Village Characteristics in Reserved and Unreserved GP, 1991 Census

Mean, reserved Mean, unreserved Difference

GP GP

Dependent variables (1) (2) (3)

A. GP Level

Total Population 12606 13579 -973

(570) (329) (614)

Number of public health facilities 0.76 1.10 -0.34

(.17) (.17) (.26)

Number of health facilities (total) 7.15 7.10 0.05

(.90) (.67) (1.14)

Number of Hospitals 0.00 0.09 -0.09

(.05) (.06)

Number of High Schools 1.19 1.37 -0.19

(.17) (.18) (.29)

Number of Middle Schools 0.69 0.66 0.02

(.11) (.08) (.13)

Number of Primary Schools 12.26 12.07 0.18

(1.00) (.37) (.88)

B. Village level

Total Population 974 1022 -49

(60) (46) (75)

Female Literacy Rate 0.35 0.34 0.01

(.01) (.01) (.01)

Male Literacy Rate 0.57 0.58 -0.01

(.01) (.01) (.01)

% Cultivated land that is irrigated 0.45 0.43 0.02

(.03) (.02) (.04)

Dirt road 0.92 0.91 0.01

(.02) (.01) (.02)

Metal road 0.18 0.15 0.03

(.03) (.02) (.03)

Bus or train stop 0.31 0.26 0.05

(.04) (.02) (.04)

Number of Public health facilities 0.06 0.08 -0.02

(.01) (.01) (.02)

Number of tuwells and hand pumps 1.13 1.20 -0.07

(.11) (.08) (.14)

Number of drinking water wells 0.44 0.47 -0.02

(.07) (.04) (.08)

Tap Water 0.05 0.03 0.01

(.03) (.02) (.03)

Number of Primary Schools 0.95 0.91 0.04

(.07) (.03) (.08)

Number of Middle Schools 0.05 0.05 0.00

(.01) (.01) (.01)

Number of High Schools 0.09 0.10 -0.01

(.01) (.01) (.02)

Notes:

1) There are 161 observations in the GP level regressions and 2120 observations in the village level

regressions

2) Standard errors given in parentheses. In the village regressions they are corrected for clustering

at the GP level

Table 3: Pradhan's Characteristics in Reserved and Unreserved GP

Mean, reserved Mean, unreserved Difference

GP GP

Depedent variables (1) (2) (3)

A. PRADHAN'S BACKGROUND

Age 31.87 39.72 -7.85

(1.08) (.87) (1.45)

Education 7.13 9.92 -2.79

(.48) (.29) (.54)

Literacy 0.80 0.98 -0.19

(.06) (.01) (.04)

Married 0.89 0.87 0.02

(.04) (.03) (.06)

Number of children 2.45 2.50 -0.05

(.2) (.15) (.26)

Below poverty line 0.46 0.28 0.18

(.07) (.04) (.08)

Number of household assets 1.72 2.36 -0.64

(.18) (.14) (.23)

Population of pradhan's own village

1554

2108

-554

(204)

(179)

(291)

Hesitates when answering the questions

0.75

0.41

0.34

(interviewer's impression) (.06) (.05) (.08)

B. PRADHAN'S POLITICAL AMBITION AND EXPERIENCE

Has been elected in the GP council 0.11 0.43 -0.32

before 1998 (.04) (.05) (.07)

Has been elected has pradhan 0.00 0.12 -0.12

before 1998 (.03) (.04)

Took part in Panchayat activities 0.28 0.78 -0.50

before elected (.06) (.04) (.07)

Knew how GP functioned 0.00 0.35 -0.35

(.05) (.07)

Did not receive any formal training 0.06 0.00 0.06

(.03) (.02)

Was spouse ever elected to the 0.17 0.02 0.15

Panchayat? (.05) (.01) (.04)

Does spouse help? 0.43 0.13 0.30

(.07) (.03) (.07)

Will not run again 0.33 0.21 0.13

(.06) (.04) (.07)

C. PRADHAN'S POLITICAL PARTY

Left Front 0.69 0.69 -0.01

(.06) (.04) (.08)

Right (Trinamul or BJP) 0.19 0.18 0.01

(.05) (.04) (.06)

Observations 54 107

Notes:

(1) Standard errors are given in parentheses

Table 4: Effect of Women's Reservation on Women's Political Participation

Mean, reserved Mean, unreserved Difference

GP GP

Dependent variables (1) (2) (3)

Participation rate in 12.33 13.07 -0.74

last Gram Samsad (in percentage) (1.09) (.9) (1.47)

Fraction of women among 9.80 6.88 2.92

participants in the Gram Samsad (in percentage) (1.33) (.79) (1.44)

Did women raise questions at the 0.38 0.29 0.08

last Gram Samsad? (.05) (.04) (.06)

Have women addressed a complaint to 0.20 0.11 0.09

the GP in the last 6 months (.04) (.03) (.05)

Notes

(1) Standard errors in parentheses

(2) There are 322 observations in the village level regressions

(3) Standard errors are corrected for clustering at the GP level in the village level regressions, using

Moulton (1986) formula

Table 5: Issues Raised by Women and Men in the Last 6 Months

Issue

Women Men

(1) (2)

Drinking water 0.26 0.14

Road improvement 0.25 0.22

Welfare programs 0.10 0.04

Housing 0.09 0.05

Electricity 0.08 0.08

Child care 0.05 0.01

Health 0.05 0.02

credit/employment/women's group 0.04 0.08

Irrigation and ponds 0.03 0.17

Education 0.02 0.14

Other 0.04 0.06

Notes:

(1) Each cell is the number of times an issues was mentionned, divided

by the total number of issues mentionned.

(2) The data for men comes from a subsample of 48 villages

Fraction of issues raised by

Table 6: Effect of Women's Reservation on Organizations in the GP

Outcome Mean, reserved Mean, unreserved

GP GP no control controlling

for population

(1) (2) (3) (4)

A. VILLAGE LEVEL

Women organisations, self help groups 0.05 0.03 0.01

created since 1998 (.02) (.01) (.02)

Number of tubewells management 0.04 0.03 0.01

comittees created since 1998 (.02) (.01) (.02)

Village education and Village attendance 1.10 1.04 0.06

committees created since 1998 (.07) (.05) (.09)

Number of health information campaigns 2.69 2.81 -0.11

and immunization campaigns since 1998 (.27) (.19) (.33)

All the previous 5 planned Gram Samsad 0.64 0.70 -0.06

were held. (.05) (.04) (.06)

B. GP LEVEL

Women organisations, self help groups 0.26 0.34 -0.08

and micro-credit groups created since 1998 (.06) (.05) (.08)

Does the GP has a forest management 0.72 0.79 -0.06

committee or a drinking water committee (.06) (.04) (.07)

Additional acreage brought under 0.93 0.60 0.33

social forestries or fisheries since 1998 (.53) (.21) (.48)

Village education and Village attendance 10.17 10.57 -0.40

committees created since 1998 (.83) (.74) (1.19)

Number of health information campaigns 5.43 6.48 -1.05

and immunization campaigns since 1998 (1.01) (.80) (1.34)

Total Own fund collected in 1998 40.63 59.11 -18.48 -17.79

(rs. 1000) (6.28) (6.06) (9.58) (9.79)

Taxes 25.83 34.34 -8.51 -7.63

(2.84) (3.26) (5.01) (5.12)

Other revenues 9.92 26.53 -16.61 -16.36

(2.28) (4.54) (6.59) (6.76)

Notes:

(1) Standard errors in parentheses

(2) There are 322 observations in the village level regressions, and 161 in the GP level regressions.

There are only 100 observations in the last three rows

(3) Standard errors are corrected for clustering at the GP level in the village level regressions, using

Moulton (1986) formula

Difference

Table 7: Effect of Women's Reservation on Public Goods Investments

Dependent Mean, reserved Mean, unreserved Difference

variable GP GP

(1) (1) (2) (3)

A. VILLAGE LEVEL

Number of drinking water facilities 23.83 14.74 9.09

newly built or repaired (5.00) (1.44) (4.02)

Number of irrigation facilities 3.31 3.67 -0.36

newly built or repaired (.81) (.81) (1.27)

Condition of roads (1 if in good 0.41 0.23 0.18

condition) (.05) (.03) (.06)

Number of latrines and drainage pits 0.14 0.42 -0.28

newly built or repaired (.08) (.13) (.19)

Number of new biogas facilities 0.26 0.06 0.20

(.11) (.02) (.08)

Number of informal education centers 0.06 0.12 -0.06

(.02) (.03) (.04)

Nuber of of adult education centers 0.10 0.01 0.09

newly built or repaired (.04) (.01) (.03)

Number of formal school buildings 0.59 0.51 0.07

newly built or repaired (.10) (.05) (.10)

B. GP LEVEL

1 if a new tubewell was built 1.00 0.93 0.07

(.02) (.03)

1 if at least one irrigation pump was built 0.17 0.09 0.07

(.05) (.03) (.05)

1 if a metal road was built or repaired 0.67 0.48 0.19

(.06) (.05) (.08)

1 if a culvert or a minor 1.00 0.85 0.15

irrigation canal was built or repaired (.) (.03) (.05)

1 if new toilets or new drainage 0.50 0.57 -0.07

pits were constructed (.07) (.05) (.08)

1 if new biogas equipment was introduced 0.50 0.45 0.05

(.07) (.05) (.08)

1 if there is an informal education 0.67 0.82 -0.16

center in the GP (.06) (.04) (.07)

1 if there is an informal education 0.74 0.83 -0.08

center in the GP (literate pradhans) (.07) (.04) (.07)

1 if there is a continuing education center 0.91 0.87 0.04

or if there was a literacy campaign (.04) (.03) (.05)

Notes:

(1) Standard errors in parentheses

(2) There are 322 observations in the village level regressions, and 161 in the GP level regressions.

There are only 100 observations in the last row

(3) Standard errors are corrected for clustering at the GP level in the village level regressions, using

Moulton (1986) formula

Table 8: Effect of Women's Reservation on Formal Education and Health Outcomes

Mean, reserved Mean, unreserved Difference Number of

GP GP obs.

(1) (2) (3) (5)

Number of pre-school 0.18 0.54 -0.36 160

centers opened since 1998 (GP) (.05) (.37) (.52)

col1

col2

col3

col5

Number of pre-school 0.18 0.54 -0.36 252

centers opened since 1998 (Village level) (.43) (.3) (.46)

Pradhan reports that the Village education Committee 0.80 0.89 -0.09 161

has influence over the primary school (GP) (.06) (.03) (.06)

Villagers report that the Panchayat has influence over 0.37 0.32 0.05 322

the running of the primary school (Village) (.05) (.04) (.07)

Pradhan reports that low teacher attendance is a 0.44 0.65 -0.21 161

problem. (GP) (.07) (.05) (.08)

col1

col2

col3

col5

Pradhan reports that low teacher attendance is a 0.47 0.66 -0.19 148

problem. (GP, litterate pradhans only) (.08) (.05) (.09)

Villagers report that low teacher attendance is a problem 0.31 0.34 -0.03 322

(village) (.05) (.04) (.06)

Number of health workers or doctor visits in the villages 12.11 9.00 3.11 322

in the last 6 months (1.44) (.95) (1.67)

Number of health workers or doctor visits in the villages 15.03 11.01 4.02 262

in the last 6 months (for village with at least 1 visit). (1.55) (1.09) (1.63)

Notes:

(1) Standard errors in parentheses

(2) Standard errors are corrected for clustering at the GP level in the village level regressions, using

Moulton (1986) formula

(3) All equations are estimated jointly in the GP level regressions and the standard errors account

for interequation correlation.

Table 9: Effect of Women's Reservation on the Location of Public Goods

Pradhan's village reserved for woman Pradhan's village reserved for woman

Dependent variable *pradhan's village *pradhan's village

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Drinking water 38.9 -33 37 -51

(12) (16) (11) (22)

Irrigation 0.52 3.05 0.27 -2.71

(1.5) (2.4) (1.6) (2.2)

Road 0.19 -0.13 0.19 -0.1

(0.058) (0.098) (0.058) (0.150)

Sanitation 1.69 -1.56 1.67 -1.23

(0.88) (0.94) (0.86) (1.04)

Biogas 0.42 -0.081 0.45 -0.11

(0.15) (0.28) (0.15) (0.40)

Informal education 0.029 0.02 0.012 -0.0076

(0.085) (0.061) (0.062) (0.120)

Adult education 0.31 -0.23 0.32 -0.26

(0.080) (0.110) (0.081) (0.110)

Formal education 0.47 -0.5 0.47 -0.66

(0.12) (0.18) (0.12) (0.22)

All invesments

42.6

-32.2

-55.9

cumulated (12) (17) (11) (23)

All invesments 21.7 -21.8 22.2 -33

cumulated, GP (6.7) (11.4) (6.7) (18.8)

reserved for SC/ST

Number of observations 477 384

Notes:

(1) each row gives the result from a separate regression of the dependent variable on

gp population, a dummy for woman reservation, a dummy for pradhan's village and the interaction between

pradhan's village and woman reservation dummies. Only the last two coefficients are reported.

(2) standard errors in parentheses

(3) Standard errors are corrected for clustering at the GP level

(4) Variables in this table are defined as in table 8

(5) There are 218 observations for the last line, column (1) and (2), and 170 for the last line, column (3) and (4)

All GP GP where woman is helped

Table 10: Effect of Women's Reservation in Selected Sub-Samples

All GP Previous pradhan's GP will be reserved GP is reserved

constituency reserved in 2003 for SC/ST

(1) (2) (3) (4)

PANEL A: PRADHAN'S BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE

Pradhan's education -2.79 -2.58 -3.31 -2.65

(.54) (.68) (.61) (.86)

Number of assets -0.64 -0.70 -0.60 -0.37

(.23) (.26) (.26) (.27)

Population of Pradhan's village -554 -482 -357 14

(291) (312) (349) (381)

Elected in GP council -0.32 -0.24 -0.31 -0.14

before 1998 (.07) (.08) (.08) (.09)

Elected as Pradhan before 1998 -0.12 0.00 -0.08 -0.02

(.04) (.) (.04) (.03)

Will not run again 0.13 0.14 0.13 0.16

(.07) (.09) (.09) (.1)

PANEL B: WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION

Have women addressed a complaint to 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.10

the GP in the last 6 months (.05) (.06) (.06) (.06)

PANEL C: PUBLIC GOODS

Revenue collection in the GP -18 -14 -7 -11

(controlling for GP population) (10) (11) (10) (14)

Village level:

Number of drinking water facilities 9.09 8.44 10.14 10.59

newly built or repaired (4.02) (5.5) (5.25) (6.01)

Condition of roads (1 if in good 0.18 0.21 0.21 0.25

condition) (.06) (.07) (.06) (.08)

Number of new biogas facilities 0.20 0.17 0.21 0.22

(.08) (.12) (.12) (.15)

Nuber of of adult education centers 0.09 0.09 0.08 0.09

newly built or repaired (.03) (.04) (.04) (.04)

GP level:

1 if a new tubewell was built in the GP 0.07 0.08 0.06 0.09

(.03) (.04) (.03) (.05)

1 if a metal road was built or repaired in the GP 0.19 0.11 0.17 0.22

(.08) (.09) (.1) (.12)

1 if there is an informal education -0.16 -0.14 -0.13 -0.14

center in the GP (.07) (.09) (.09) (.11)

PANEL C: MONITORING

Pradhan reports that low teacher attendance is a -0.21 -0.19 -0.22 -0.24

problem. (GP) (.08) (.1) (.1) (.11)

Number of health workers or doctor visits 3.11 2.34 3.40 0.87

in the last 6 months (for village with at least 1 visit).

(1.67) (2.14) (1.82) (2.48)

Note

(1) Column 2 presents the difference between the mean of the dependent variable in GPs

reserved for women and GP where the previous Pradhan was prevented from re-election due to a reservation of his boot

There are 55 GP (110 villages) reserved for women, and 51 GP (102 villages) where the previous pradhan's boot is reserved

(2) Column 3 presents the difference between the mean of the dependent variable in GP

reserved for women and GP that will be reserved for woman in 2003

There are 55 GP (110 villages) reserved for women in 1998, and 52 GP (146 villages) that will be reserved in 2003

(3) Colum 4 presents the difference between the mean of the dependent variable in GP reserved

for a woman SC/ST and GP reserved for a SC/ST

There are 78 GP (146 villages) reserved for SC and ST, including 28 reserved for women as well

(4) Standard errors are in parentheses, and are corrected for correlation at the GP level in the village level regressions

Difference between GP reserved for

women and unreserved GP