Political Competition and Human Development: Evidence from the Indian States
研究了印度各邦政治竞争程度与人类发展指数（HDI）的关系，发现政治竞争越激烈，HDI表现越好，尤其对农村地区帮助更大；长期执政和选民参与度提高也有正面作用。
Recently, it has been argued that political competition may have similar effects on economic performance as it does on market competition. This study empirically examines this proposition by linking political competition with the Human Development Index (HDI) of the Indian states. The findings suggest that politically-competitive governments perform well along the HDI. A more detailed analysis also shows that rural India benefits most from the intense political competition compared to urban India. We also found that if the same government rules a state for a relatively long period, it helps the state to achieve a higher HDI score. Increasing voter participation is found to be positively associated with HDI score, but this finding is confined to the sample of major Indian states. Increasing public spending on developmental activities is also found to have a positive and significant effect on HDI performance.