The Price of Power: Costs of Political Corruption in Indian Electricity
利用印度电力行政数据和断点回归，发现执政党选区账单电量低40%但实际用电更高，揭示政客通过操纵账单补贴选民，造成9亿美元效率损失并阻碍发展。
Politicians may target public goods to benefit their constituents, at the expense of others. I study corruption in the context of Indian electricity and estimate the welfare consequences. Using new administrative billing data and close-election regression discontinuities, I show that billed electricity consumption is lower for constituencies of the winning party by almost 40 percent, while actual consumption, measured by nighttime lights, is higher. I document the covert way in which politicians subsidize constituents by manipulating bills. These actions have substantial welfare implications, with an efficiency loss of US$0.9 billion, leading to unreliable electricity supply and significant negative consequences for development.