The political consequences of resource scarcity: Targeted spending in a water-stressed democracy
研究了印度水资源稀缺地区，州政府如何将公共援助资金定向分配给与执政党结盟的地方辖区，以换取选举支持。
We study whether resource scarcity enhances the scope for targeted spending in India. Farmers without access to groundwater during dry seasons cope using a large public-aid program controlled by local politicians. We leverage a multidimensional regression discontinuity for exogenous variation in whether local politicians are aligned with the state’s ruling party. We find that the state government channels disproportionate funds to politically-aligned jurisdictions in water-stressed areas and gains votes in subsequent elections. However, we find no partisan differences in aid allocation for non-water-stressed areas, suggesting a selective targeting of public funds to garner votes in the highest-return regions.