Don t touch my road.

Transcription

1 Don t touch my road. How a privatized public good may become public again: evidence from Indian political reservations. Preliminary VICTOIRE GIRARD CES - Universite Paris 1 Sorbonne January 2015 Abstract Political quotas could help to fight a tradition of caste-based exclusions. Caste-based exclusions can result in the privatization of a public good. In the Hindi-belt, the heart-land of India, 44.5% of the households of the marginalized Scheduled Castes (SC) declare some streets to be off-limits, due to their caste, in I study whether political quotas for the low castes can help to increase low castes access to public goods. I take advantage of the Indian system of seats reservation for low caste members in local assemblies. Seats reservation leads to exogenous variations in village-level political outcomes. Ongoing political reservations appear to decrease caste-based street exclusions. The decrease due to political reservations accounts for half of the total decrease in caste-based exclusions since However, the effect does not last after the end of the reserved term, and does not extend to the private sphere. An interpretation consistent with the evidence provided in this article is that low caste leaders elected on a reserved seat enforce or bargain better life conditions for low castes only during the reserved term. Keywords: Roads, Public Goods, India, Inequality, Caste, Political Reservation, Discrimination JEL D63, J15, O12, O53 Contact information: Victoire Girard, Maison des Sciences Economiques, Boulevard de l Hopital, Paris. victoire.girard@univ-paris1.fr. I thank Andrew Foster for providing the data. 1

2 1 Introduction Political quotas could help to fight a tradition of caste-based exclusions. In rural India, caste groups can define the club of people entitled to access a good. As a result, some public goods are privatized, in the sense of being turned into caste-club goods. In 2006, 44.5% households members of the marginalized scheduled castes (SCs, formerly called untouchable ), declare some streets to be off-limits due to their caste in states of the Hindi belt. 1 Streets are usually considered as a non-excludable public good. But caste makes things more complex in India. Caste-based exclusions, from streets or other public goods, are not leftovers from old habits that would mechanically fade away. 2 News reports abound on how SC households may be punished for breaking a caste-based rule. 3 Yet the Indian Constitution of 1949 abolished untouchability. Moreover, public goods are a cornerstone of development. How can public good access be improved for marginalized communities? This paper investigates how political representation can help to answer to this question. The SCs and other low castes benefit of seat reservations (quotas) in Indian local political assemblies. Do political reservations help to increase low castes access to public goods? I focus on political quotas because the purpose of quotas is to fight a legacy of discrimination. However, quotas are a controversial policy tool. I evaluate whether quotas decrease street exclusion. Street exclusion is a striking example of caste-based discrimination. I focus on the SCs rather than the OBCs or the STs, because the SCs form a more homogeneous and more discriminated against group than the OBCs, and have more interaction with high castes than the STs. My identification strategy relies on the way quotas are attributed. Quotas are attributed to villages within each state by the state administration. The attribution rule is state-specific. It can be random, or depend upon village level characteristics. Once village level characteristics are accounted for, I can 1 States where Hindi is widely spoken. In this study: Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. 2 Households considered untouchables could not access public roads in 18% of the villages in (Shah, Mander, Thorat, Deshpande, and Baviskar, 2006). The rate of exclusion varies with the type of public good denied: some water facilities are privatized in 50% of the villages, primary health center in 18% of the villages. 3 A special law, the Prevention of Atrocities Act, is dedicated to protect the SCs and STs against caste-based offenses. However, the Union Minister for Home Affairs declared in 2010 : The number of cases of atrocities against the Scheduled Castes registered in 2006 was 26,665. [...] Many of the cases are simply not registered. [...] What makes it doubly painful is that there is rise in atrocities, but when you try to prosecute and convict, the conviction rate is only 30%. It was 28%, 31.4% and 32% [in 2006, 2007 and 2008]. Not only are acquittals very high; pendency is about 80%. Moreover, privatized public goods can trigger such atrocities. In Bros and Couttenier (2015) open wells trigger more atrocities against the SCs than sources that are believed to be less prone to ritual pollution. 2

3 identify the effect of political quotas on SC household access to streets through within village variation. I document a large and significant (both statistically and economically) effect of political quotas on low caste members access to streets. The more time since the election (and quota implementation), the bigger the effect. However, this effect does not last after the end of the reserved term, and does not extend to the private sphere. Reservation can improve access to streets during the reserved term through several -non exclusivechannels. A SC pradhan could trigger or catalyze a reaction among the SCs to voice their rights. In Hirschman (1970) framework, a leader can help dissatisfied individuals to voice their concern (rather than following the exit option, e.g. migration, or the loyalty option, accepting the discriminatory situation). The SCs collective consciousness can play an important part since the anticipation of discrimination can on the contrary lead to a vicious circle of low achievement for the low castes (Hoff and Pandey, 2006). Alternatively, the non-scs may update their priors -stereotypes- on the SCs, thanks to the exposure to a SC leader. Reservation ensures that a member of the marginalized SCs has both social visibility, and responsibilities. This contact channel is in line with Allport (1954) theory, partly confirmed for women reservation in Beaman et al. (2009). However, the non-scs could also change attitudes toward the SCs independently of their priors. This change could be consistent with two stories. In the first story, the low caste pradhan, while in a position of power, acts to ensure better living conditions for other low caste members. The pradhan can either bargain this amelioration with multi-caste partners, or enforce this amelioration against the other castes (Chauchard, 2014). 4 In the second story, the social norm changes, because the non-scs perception of this norm -what is socially acceptable- evolves away from segregation. In this story, suggested by (Chauchard, 2014), the non-scs are less reluctant to everyday interactions with the SCs because they see other non-scs interact with the SCs (yet the non-scs stereotypes are unaffected). 5 The pattern of results in the article is consistent with an essential part played by the SC pradhan while elected. 4 As outlined earlier in the Introduction, the Prevention of Atrocities Act exists to protect low castes from the leftovers of a discriminatory legacy. But low castes do not systematically take advantage of this law, because they have difficulties to access officials (if only because 18% of them can not access police station Shah et al., 2006), and because even once cases are signaled the judiciary system can let them unsolved. One can expect a parallel with Iyer et al. (2011) observation that women more easily file complaints when a women is elected in local political bodies. Lastly, (Chauchard, 2014) outlines that the high caste know that the SC pradhan interacts with higher rank officials. 5 Although (Chauchard, 2014) work is not on roads he notes that As the [SC pradhans] and their entourage walk through village streets to assess various public works, villagers see members of the SCs on streets on which they otherwise dared not venture. 3

4 This article is an extension of the literature on the impact of political representation and quotas. Quotas are implemented to compensate for, and eventually eradicate, a discriminatory legacy. Most of the literature on minorities representation in India studies whether the leader s financial or voting choices are a function of the leader s identity. 6 However, laws and public fund allocation are not the only outcomes affected by an elected representative s identity. For instance, a female leader increases the proportion of female candidates at the next election, because it decreases parties biases against women candidates (Bhalotra et al., 2013), and voters stereotypes on gender roles in the public and private sphere (Beaman et al., 2009). Gender quotas have also lead to a tremendous increase in the number of crimes against women (Iyer, Mani, Mishra, and Topalova, 2011). This increase is due to an increase in crime reporting - not in crime incidence. Iyer et al. (2011) interpret this increase as a signal that women have a better access to police stations. The literature on the impact of political representation by caste on constituents actions is scarcer. Gille (2014) documents the pivotal part played by Other Backward Caste (not SC) pradhans in caste networks, OBC pradhans makes OBC constituents more likely to apply to a reserved job. Closer from the perspective of the present article, Chauchard (2014) assesses the consequence of reservation on everyday interactions. He finds that SC quotas should decrease the enforcement of castebased discrimination even if stereotypes are not affected. He attributes this finding to the emergence of new norms of interaction between castes thanks to reservation. I complete the above-mentioned literature in two respects. Firstly, I provide additional evidence on the effect of quotas. Quotas are still a controversial policy tool. In Rohini Pande s words, at the Independence, the Indian state committed to use public policy to end caste-based discrimination, and to improve the economic status of disadvantaged groups. (Pande, 2003). Quotas are a centerpiece of this commitment. The impact of quotas on street access encompasses both of the two objectives cited by Pande (2003): it is a question of caste-based discrimination; and freedom to move is a pre-requisite of economic empowerment. The combination of both objectives makes road access a great candidate to assess the consequence of reservations. Secondly, most of the economic literature on quotas, and in particular the literature on caste-based quotas, asks whether the way funds are allocated is a function of the leader s caste. A fund re-allocation requires to divert resources from some projects to put these resources in other projects (favored by the 6 An exhaustive list is beyond the scope of this introduction, seminal references are Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004) for women and Besley, Pande, Rahman, and Rao (2004) for castes. Articles in this literature trend often use minorities representation to evaluate whether the leader s identity matters at all, an observation in contradiction with the Downsian voting model. 4

5 minority group). I ask whether quotas can improve access to already-existing public goods. Improved access is a matter of overcoming traditional restrictions to the free use of pre-existing public goods. Improved access does not require any resource re-allocation. 7 To my knowledge, the question has not yet been addressed in the economic literature. The most relevant precedent I am aware of is Chauchard (2014). However, my study differs from his in at least two important respects. A first distinction is technical. Because of his data design, 8 Chauchard (2014) can not assess the effect of reservation in time. A second distinction pertains to the question tackled. Chauchard (2014) relies on declarations of discriminatory intentions by the non-scs. But surveying discriminatory intentions is delicate. The non-scs may manipulate their declarations, and action may differ from intention. In this article, I study the same question but from a different angle: I use the SCs declarations after the non-scs actions have taken place. In the next section, I present the caste and reservation systems. In section 3 I present the data. The estimation strategy and results are in sections 4 and 5. Section 6 concludes. 2 The Indian Context 2.1 Castes and Segregation Castes have carved the Indian social setting for more than 3,000 years. Three key features of castes are important to remind for this study. First, castes are hereditary, exclusive and virtually unchangeable at the household level. 9 Second, castes are ordinated on a social status ladder, that matches a purity ladder, where so-called ritual pollution may happen between people of different purity status if some rules to prevent this pollution are not followed. 10 Third, and closely linked to the second aspect, caste groups are segregated: this has lead to forms of spatial segregation, and to historically very strict matrimonial segregation. These theoretical features translate into preferences or rules affecting everyday 7 One could also expect improved access to signal a change in the nature of everyday interactions. In the long-run, this change could be a signal of successful quotas. However the available evidence in this article does not signal any long-lasting change in the nature of everyday interactions. 8 He uses first hand data from a sample of never reserved and first time reserved villages. 9 Even if some cases of identity manipulation have been recorded, these cases are marginal, and correspond to group level strategies, to increase a caste status in the society, or on the contrary benefit from some positive action policies (Deliège, 2004; Cassan, 2013). 10 Ritual pollution is believed to happen for example if a member of a high caste performs ritually dirty actions like scavenging or shares some intimacy (direct touching or sharing food or drinks) with a member of a low caste. In case of failure to comply by the rule, being polluted has spiritual consequences, but time or de-polluting activities usually allow to be get one s purity back 5

6 life interactions. Up until now, castes structure business networks (Munshi, 2011), and severely curve mates selection (Banerjee, Duflo, Ghatak, and Lafortune, 2013), while revealing subjects caste in an experiment significantly affects their performances (Hoff and Pandey, 2006). Castes are recorded in the Census through four broad groups, Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Castes (OBC) and Other Castes (OC). Scheduled Castes households, who belong to a list of particularly backward castes, that used to be considered untouchables, still suffer from caste based discrimination. This translate in a variety of ways, including exclusion from market, or systematic deviation from market price at their disadvantage, being sold/rented out products at higher prices, and bought/rented in products at lower prices than non SC households (Thorat, Mahamanlik and Sadana s survey results in Thorat and Newman, 2010). Spatial segregation is also observed, as in a traditional Indian village SCs live in a separate neighborhood or hamlet (Deliège, 2004). Lastly, SCs suffer from widespread exclusion. Exclusion can be formal, through clear cut access denial as outlined in the introduction, or more pernicious, through a differential treatment, which has been widely documented in the case of schooling. 11 Beside the moral aspect of the question, universal access to public goods is central for SCs economic empowerment, and thereby to India s achievements in poverty reduction. 2.2 Reservations In 1993, the 73rd amendment to the Constitution of India has institutionalized local level political councils called Gram Panchayats (GP hereafter). GP are elected. GP have decision power on the fixing and building of local public goods such as roads or water devices. GP also decide who are the households entitled to social programs. GP are composed of ward representatives and headed by a pradhan. The pradhan has agenda-setting power in Panchayat meetings, but no veto power. The pradhan is the only council member working full time. The pradhan is elected either directly by the GP constituents, or indirectly by members of the GP council. The 1993 reform is also important because it puts quotas in place, as a tool of positive discrimination. Both the pradhan and the ward representative seats can be reserved to women or low caste members (SC, ST or OBC). Seats are reserved for one term at a time. Reserved seats rotate between villages. Gender quotas are imposed in a third of all constituencies, and the rotation of gender quotas is random. The proportion of caste quotas varies within each state: each caste quota is proportional to the weight of that caste in the state population. The rotation rule differs from one state to the other. Some states allocate reserved seats in a purely random way, others list villages according to the proportion of their population 11 Low caste students can be ignored or physically punished by teachers (PROBE report, 1999), or receive less good grade for similar answers (Hanna and Linden, 2012). 6

7 being SC/ST/OBC, and use these lists to attribute reservations. What is essential for the identification strategy in this article is that the rotation is decided by the state administration. The decision can be a function of village level attributes, but which villages are concerned by the pradhan seat reservation during a given term remains an administrative decision. Caste quotas are supposed to compensate for, and help to eradicate, a legacy of discrimination. This can be achieved in several manners. Low caste representatives can -and do- favor their pairs in the allocation of funds (beneficiary selection or location of the public goods to be maintained or built). However the legacy of discrimination goes beyond an unfair targeting of public money beneficiaries. It appears in everyday interactions. Proponents of positive action in India have justified it as a transitory tool. One of the purposes is to change everyday interactions, otherwise once reservation stops the country will be back to a pre-reservation (discriminatory) state. The main aim of this article is to check whether reservation changes interactions. I additionally discuss which of the channels listed in the introduction is consistent with the pattern of results. 3 Data 3.1 Dataset Data are extracted from the last round of the Rural Economic and Development Survey (REDS), undertaken in 2006 by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER). It contains both a survey at the village level and a complete census of the households of the surveyed villages. The dataset contains information about 242 villages of 17 major Indian states, while the households census covers 115,000 households. This article is focused on the Hindi-belt states. The Hindi belt is the heartland of India, which encompasses on average poorer states and display more tensed inter-caste relationships than southern India (Jaffrelot, 2002). In the surveyed villages, the 1996 exclusion figure for SCs in Hindi Belt states is 65% against 12% in non Hindi Belt states. Politics is also more caste-oriented in these states, where SC have risen as a political group (Jaffrelot, 2002). The area is particularly prone to studying how caste based political reservation can affect caste based exclusion. The final sample encompasses 48,219 households, spread in 89 villages. 7

8 3.2 Street Exclusions The household census contains information on whether certain streets of the village are off-limit for respondents due to their caste or religious identities. Respondents are asked one question about castebased exclusion, and another question on religion-based exclusion. The information are collected both for the survey moment and 10 years before, through a recall question. Grounding street access in the caste identity means that the the supposed to be public street is privatized. Access to the supposed to be public good becomes a function of the household caste. High castes can enjoy the public good but prevent low castes from enjoying it. Traditional Indian villages are spatially segregated: the high castes live in one neighborhood and the low castes in another neighborhood, or a separate hamlet. Street exclusion declarations by the SCs correspond to the fact that they can not enter in some parts of the village. This spatial segregation is one among many consequences of the idea that interaction with a lower caste is a bad thing for high caste members. This idea is grounded in the belief that contact with a low caste could ritually pollute the high caste. Descriptive statistics on the extent of street exclusions and how they vary with group identities in table 1 show that the SCs, as expected, declare most of the street exclusions. The STs declare less street exclusion, although their social status is comparable to the SCs status. While the STs are only 7% to suffer from street exclusion in 2006 the corresponding figure for the SCs is 44,5%. But the SCs and STs display very different settlement patterns. The STs descend from tribes, they live in isolated autonomous villages. The SCs on the contrary are part of traditional multi-caste villages. Historically the Scs handle jobs discarded by higher castes. As a result, the STs more often than the SCs live in places where they belong to the majority or are a very small minority: 60% of the STs live in villages where STs represent less than 10% or more than 50% of the population, while only 10% of the SCs live in villages where SCs are less than 10 or more than 50% of the population. Table 1: Street Access and group shares in the whole sample caste population share excluded share excluded number of households who group share gained access from 1996 to 2006 SC 20,0% 65,0% 44,5% 2076 ST 6,5% 31,4% 7,2% 779 OBC 50,8% 5,5% 4,0% 520 OC 22,4% 1,6% 1,3% 62 8

9 3.3 SC pradhans and reservations The study focuses on SC quotas, implemented in 24 of the 89 villages surveyed. SC reservation is observed only once in each village. As for ST reservation, the sample is too small to allow a proper study: only three villages display variations both in ST street access declarations and reservation status. 12 Out of the 178 pradhan terms considered in this article (two election terms in 89 villages), a total of 43 pradhan seats are occupied by a SC pradhan. Next to the 24 SC pradhans elected in a reserved seat, 19 SC pradhans have won an open election. The latter figure is surprisingly high. Political reservations have been implemented precisely because of SC under-representation. Villages where a SC is elected in the absence of a SC quota are likely to have very specific features. What makes villages where a SC pradhan is elected outside a caste quota so special? I check what is the share of the village population who is SC. I also check whether relations between castes in the village are particularly nice; or whether these villages combine numerous SC households and bad relations between castes (leading to a SC collective action). The share of SC households in the village population, and the share of excluded households among SCs are known. Table 2 displays means comparison tests on these variables. The first sample encompasses villages where a SC pradhan has been elected outside a SC quota, the second sample encompasses villages without SC quotas. The SCs appear to be more numerous in villages where SC pradhans are elected. However they apparently remain a minority. 13 More importantly, there seem to be no difference between the two samples on street exclusions. This is essential, because street exclusion is the variable of interest of the study. A last characteristic I test is the part played by gender quotas, because gender quotas prevent the traditional elite to run from office. The prevalence of gender quotas differs significantly between samples. Looking more closely at the overlap between SC pradhans, SC quotas and gender quotas, out of 19 terms where a SC pradhan is elected outside a SC quota, 15 are elected on a gender quota, and 3 are elected after a SC quota took place in the previous term. Only one SC pradhan has been elected outside any reservation treatment. Gender quotas change villages political landscapes: table 3 shows that pradhans caste distribution in 12 At least one ST is present in 47 of the 89 villages of the study, but only 5 villages have experienced reservation of the pradhan seat to a ST over one of the two terms, and in two of these villages no ST ever declare any street exclusion. Four other villages have had an ST reservation in both terms, but the impact is not time variant in that case so it would be captured by household level fix effects. 13 A Panchayat is often constituted of more than one village, and it may be the case that the SCs share in the GP differs from the share in the sampled village. However, I would not expect SCs to be the vast majority of many GP because of traditional settlement patterns. 9

10 Table 2: Mean Comparison Tests, villages with versus without a SC pradhan (the sample is restricted to the 166 terms without a SC quota) SC Pradhan Difference Sign No SC Pradhan P> z SC population share > *** SC rate of street exclusion < women reservation > *** women-reserved seats converges toward the population caste-distribution. Table 3 statistics are computed for the 139 terms where neither a SC nor a ST nor a OBC seat reservation was imposed. Outside genderquotas, OC (the high castes) win twice more pradhan seats than their share in the population, while SC and ST are poorly represented. The contrast with caste distribution on women reserved seats is striking. Caste distribution on women reserved seats mirrors the population caste composition. Some women may be elected only because their husbands could not run for office. 14 But another parallel dynamic is at play: seat reservation for women disqualifies the traditional male and high caste elite from running for office. It imposes to reconsider who can be legitimate to run for office. Low caste women, in particular SC, appear to have taken advantage of this situation. This mirrors Buch s affirmation, after a field research in Panchayats of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh that Women who entered new panchayat showed a wider participation across social and economic class/caste. Their occupation, income levels and household assets indicated presence of hitherto unrepresented sections. (Buch, 2013, p. 52). Table 3: Caste composition of elected pradhan and population for the terms without any caste-based quota. unreserved seat reserved woman population share SC ST OBC OC total I focus the empirical analysis on the impact of SC quotas. I follow this option to focus the attention on quotas as a political tool. Moreover, it allows me to exploit an exogenous source of variation of the 14 This idea is widely spread, in particular among quota opponents, but some evidence show that women election on reserved seats does change things for women, be it through priorities re-orientation, or attitudes change (Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004; Beaman et al., 2009; Iyer et al., 2011). 10

11 leader s identity. However, in almost all specifications, I control for SC elections outside quotas. I also explore further the impact of gender quotas on SC elections and SC street access in section Empirical Strategy The aim of this article is to assess the link between reservation of the pradhan s seat for a SC household can and SC households access to streets. I rely on linear probability models because of the important number of fix effects included in the second specification. 15 For starter, I estimate the following equation in cross section: Street_access iv = α 1 + α 2 Reserv_SC v SC i + α 3X i + δ v + ε iv (1) Where Reserv_SC is a village dummmy equal to one when there is a caste quota for the pradhan s seat. SC is a dummy for Scheduled Castes households. The coefficient of interest is α 2, it tells whether SC households access to streets in 2006 is affected by the fact that their pradhan is a SC, elected after a caste quota. X i is a set of household level controls which can be related to the household social status in the village. X i contains : the household caste category, its exclusion from streets in 1996, the head s sex, education level (above or below primary), age, income and agricultural occupation. The main challenge in this study is the endogeneity of the reservation timing. To allocate reserved seats between villages, state administrations can rely on village-level criterion. At a given moment, villages with reservations can therefore differ from villages without reservations and the impact of having a SC pradhan on the SCs can not be identified. I follow Besley et al. (2004) strategy to tackle this issue: I account for village characteristics through village fix effects. δ v are village-level fix effects. δ v account for all the village-level unobservables which may be correlated to the reservation status of the village, or to the probability that the SCs are excluded in the village given their share in the village population. This strategy allows me to identify the impact of reservation through within village variations. The error term, ε iv is clustered at the level of the variable of interest, namely caste categories within villages. 16 The issue of the above specification is that I can not rule out a declaration bias, by SC respondents, correlated with quotas. The SCs can be over-optimistic when one of them is the pradhan: they can feel more legitimate and consequently declare less segregation although nothing has changed. This overoptimism would lead to an amplification bias in the estimation of α 2. The SCs can on the contrary 15 The use of Linear Probability Model has spread since Angrist (2001) s plea that quantities of interest are, ultimately, marginal effects. 16 Results are robust to clustering at the village level. 11

12 become over-sensitive to discrimination, and complain of it more easily, during a SC reserved term. This over-pessimism would lead to an attenuation bias in the estimation of α 2. To deal with this concern, I follow two strategies. Firstly, I take advantage of the fact that both street access and reservation are observed at two different points in time, both at the survey moment and 10 years before. I can therefore control for all time invariant characteristics at the household level through household fix effects. These fix effects can account for any systematic declaration bias, which could be correlated with reservation (including over-optimism or pessimism). I implement this strategy in equation 2 below. However, I can not rule out that the bias is time variant. The SC quotas could bias the SCs declarations only during the quota. To check this possibility I can change the impact of reservation on another outcome than street access. I describe the implementation of this test later in this section. The panel specification is: Street_access ivt = βreserv_sc vt SC i + δ vt + δ gt + δ i + η ivt (2) The coefficient of interest is β, it has the same interpretation as α 2 in the first specification. δ i are household fix effects to account for time invariant unobservables at the household level. The household caste is absorbed by these fix effects. δ vt accounts for possible changes over time at the village level, which may be correlated to the reservation status of the village. δ gt accounts for the general amelioration trend observed at the group level, which can be independent of village level reservations. The error term η ivt is two way clustered, to account for shocks both at the household level and at the caste group level within each village and year (Cameron, Gelbach, and Miller, 2011). The second cluster s scale is the scale of the interaction term of interest. 17 The panel estimation relies on households who declare a change in their access to streets between 1996 and β is significant only if the change of street access is different between the SCs and others in their village when there is a reservation, and if this change is different from the general amelioration trend observed for the SCs in the whole sample between 1996 and Results are consistent with a positive impact of SC quotas on the probability that the SCs can access every street in their villages. I additionally control for the interaction term of SC household and SC pradhan in all specifications but the two most parsimonious ones. SC pradhans elected outside caste quotas seem to worsen the SCs access to street: the coefficient of the interaction term is positive (it increases street exclusion). Because out-of-quotas elections are endogenous, and mix several situations, the coefficient is hard to interpret. Elections outside quotas mix the effect of an election contested between 17 Results are robust to clustering at both the household and the year*village level. 12

13 people of different caste, the leader s gender identity (since most elected SC pradhans are elected on seats reserved for women), and unobservables. Because of the descriptive statistics presented in section 3, in sub-section 5.2 I control for gender quotas, and an interaction term between gender quotas and SC pradhans. I use these dummies to investigate the impact of a pradhan s caste and gender identities on the SCs. The rest of the article focuses on the robustness, credibility, and interpretation of results on SC quotas and the SCs access to streets. I check the result validity against the sample definition. Firstly, I exclude from the sample villages where a SC quota has been imposed in the past. In this sample, the control group has never received any reservation treatment. With this sample I can estimate a standard standard difference in differences estimator. Secondly, I include in the sample all Indian states. The SCs living outside the Hindi-belt do not face nearly as much exclusions as the SCs living in the Hindi-belt. As a consequence the dependent variable does not vary as much outside the Hindi-belt as inside the Hindi-belt. It is however interesting to check how results can be transposed to the whole country. I check the effect of quotas through time. Firstly, I check whether the effect is a function of the time elapsed since the election. I consider the time elapsed between the latest panchayat election and the moment of measurement of street exclusion. Panchayats with a SC quota are 1 to 4 years old. In order to allow any functional shape, I create four new dummy variables to replace the SC res_sc term, one dummy for each panchayat age. SC res_sc_y 1 takes value one for SC households living in one of the 4 villages where a SC pradhan has been elected after a SC quota, for more than one year but less than two years. I follow the same logic to create SC res_sc_y 2 (2 villages), SC res_sc_y 3 (7 villages) and SC res_sc_y 4 (11 villages). Secondly, I check whether reservation has a persistent effect. To do so, I add in the regression an interaction term for SC reservation during the previous panchayat term. The pradhan s seat was reserved to a SC in the term prior to 1996 term in 1 village only, and in the term prior to the 2006 term in 7 villages. 18 After that, I test how quotas affect other groups. SC quotas have been designed to help the SCs, but quotas for one low caste could have spillovers for other low castes. Firstly, I test whether the street access of the STs, or the OBCs, is a function of SC reservation. The OBCs and the SCs are usually more like rivals than friends, but it is interesting to check whether there are spillovers from the SC reservation on the other low-castes. Secondly, I test the symmetric relation: whether OBC seat reservation improves 18 The Constitution has been amended in 1993 but states knew before that year that they would have to implement it. And some states had pre-existing Panchayats. Although most states had their first Panchayat election in 1995 in the framework of the law, elections timing varies across states. 13

14 the SCs access to streets. Thirdly, I check whether the Muslims access to street is a function of SC reservation. I do not expect Muslim households to be affected by reservation to a SC, this specification is a placebo test. Muslim exclusions are grounded in a Hindu/Muslim divide while reservations for low castes aim at reducing the low/high caste gap. In the last section, I discuss the results interpretation. In a first step, I check the result against the concern of a time varying declaration bias, induced by reservation. To do so, I test whether ongoing reservation makes the SCs over-optimistic about caste-based discrimination in other domains than street access. The REDS2006 asks to household heads whether themselves or a family member have been discriminated against, because of their caste or religion, while seeking for a job. The question is asked separately for the household head and other household members, and for the survey moment and 10 years before. Respondents and their relatives perceived discrimination on the job market has decreased by one and three percent, respectively, over the 10 years period. These variables clearly rely on the interpretation of the interviewee. If reservation leads to a time-varying declaration bias by the SCs, I would expect that this variable is affected in the same direction as street access declarations. In a second step, I discuss which channels are consistent with the pattern of results. I consider the following channels, presented in the introduction :a collective action by the SCs, evolution of the non- SCs priors or perception of the norm, or the SC pradhan s actions. To assess the relevance of these channels, I take advantage of the fact that they should have different implications on the long run, after the reserved term is over. 5 Results 5.1 SC Reservations and SC Street Access: baseline results Reservation raises SC access to streets according to the results displayed in table 4. In 2006 the effect offsets SCs initial disadvantage (column 1, table 4). If one moves to the panel specification the effect magnitude is the same. For SC households, having a SC pradhan makes street exclusions 9% less likely (column 3, table 4). This is almost half of the observed 20% point decrease in SC street exclusion declarations. 14

15 Table 4: Baseline results: street exclusions grounded in caste identity (1) (2) (3) (4) Cross Section Cross Section Panel Panel caste exclu caste exclu caste exclu caste exclu SC*res_SC *** *** *** *** (0.0325) (0.0472) (0.0183) (0.0253) SC*pradh_SC ** (0.0399) (0.0225) SC *** *** (0.0168) (0.0178) Observations 40,047 40,047 79,972 79,972 village fix effects X X O O household controls X X O O time*village fix effects O O X X time*caste fix effects O O X X household fix effects O O X X R-squared Robust standard errors in parentheses. Errors are clustered by village caste groups in column 1 and 2. Errors are two way clustered for time*village*caste and household levels in columns 4 and 5. Controls included (columns 1 and 2): household caste category, household exclusion from streets in 1996, the head s sex, education level (above or below primary), age, income and occupation with a dummy for whether the primary income source comes from agriculture. SC reservation and SC pradhan main effects are absorbed by villages fix effects. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. However, columns 1 and 3 estimates leave in the control group 19 villages where a SC pradhan has been elected out of a reserved seat. SC pradhan election out of reservation are controlled for in coluns 2 and 4 (and in the rest of the article. The variable has an unexpected significantly positive sign: SC pradhans elected outside SC quotas seem to worsen SCs situation. I investigate this effect in section

16 5.2 SC Reservation, SC Pradhans and Female Reservation Table 5: Caste-based street exclusions, with SC reservation, SC pradhans, or female reservation (1) (2) caste exclu caste exclu SC*res_SC *** *** (0.0396) (0.0419) SC*pradh_SC (0.0351) (0.0489) SC*res_woman ** (0.0240) (0.0276) SC*pradh_SC*res_woman 0.149*** (0.0527) Observations 79,972 79,972 time*village fix effects X X time*caste fix effects X X household fix effects X X R-squared Robust standard errors in parentheses two way clustered by time*village*caste and household levels. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. In this section, I dig further in the worsening effect of SC pradhans elected outside a SC reservation. Please recall from section 3.3 that out of 19 SC pradhans elected outside a caste quota, 15 were elected on a gender quota. In table 5 I decompose the effect of SC pradhans with respect to female reservation. Female pradhans, elected after a gender quota, seem to worsen the SCs situation (column 1). However, if I add an interaction term for SC pradhans elected on a gender quotas, the entire positive effect of women reservation comes from SC women (column 2). Why should SC female pradhans have a different impact than male SC pradhans? Gender and caste may interact in unexpected ways. Caste-based and gender-based preferences may not converge. Clots-Figueras (2011) studies a situ- 16

17 ation which mirrors the one studied in this article: she shows that the gender effect is different for low caste women (elected on SC ST reserved seats in state elections) than for higher caste women (elected on unreserved seats). Her interpretation relies on the idea that gender and class effects can be contradictory. Moreover, female pradhan, even if low caste, may prioritize gender-based requests over caste-based requests. I can not compare the effect of SC female pradhans elected with and without a gender quota outside a caste quota. But if anything, being elected after a gender quota should increase the likelihood that the woman pradhan prioritizes gender-based requests. 19 Another possible channels appear in K. et al. (2010). They find that SC female pradhans target SC beneficiaries more than non-sc female pradhans do, but still target them less than either general pradhans or SC pradhans. Their interpretation relies on a lack of socialization of the newly elected female pradhan who does not know how to implement traditional patronage. Lastly, descriptive statistics in table 3 show that elections with gender quotas are more contested. SC women elected on reserved seats are elected after a contest in opposition to other women, that may have been high caste women. This competition between castes is not observed during elections for a SC-reserved seat. High castes have to accept that a SC is to be pradhan when there is a SC quota. Please recall table 3: outside reserved seats, high castes win nearly half elections, although they represent a fifth of the electorate, while on women reserved seats, high castes win only a quarter of all elections. Women reservation may favor the emergence of new political personalities (?) or alliances among lower castes to increase their access to power. The interaction of caste and gender effect deserves further investigation. However, this investigation is left for future work, with more complete data. The core of this article therefore focuses on SC election on SC reserved seats, although I always control for the election of a SC pradhan outside SC quotas. 5.3 Reservations and Street Access: robustness I check table 4 result against several concerns: firstly, is the effect robust to the sample definition? Reassuringly, in table 6, both the significance and the magnitude of the coefficient of interest stay constant across alternative samples. I consider two alternative samples. In the first sample, I omit villages with a past reservation, in the second sample I add non-hindi-belt states. 19 In the lab, insisting on Asiatic women ethnicity versus gender identities affect their math and verbal performances in opposite directions, each time consistent with stereotypes (Shih et al., 2006). In the field, one can imagine that being elected on a seat made accessible due to one s gender may strengthen gender identity. Additionally, roads are a gendered concern in Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004), although which gender is more preoccupied by roads varies in the two studied states. 17

18 Secondly, does is effect of reservation independent of the age of reservation? Reservation has a significant effect on the SCs s access to streets only after the first year (7 column 1). The impact is bigger for 2 years old reservations than for 3 or 4 years old reservations. However, only two panchayats are two years old. Because of the small sample size, and because effects in time are not contradictory, I focus on the average effect of SC quotas, independent of their age, in the rest of this article. Thirdly, does the effect last after the reservation is over? To answer this question, I control for reservation in the previous Panchayat term. The effect of reservation does not last after the end of the reserved term (table 7 column 2). This observation points toward a crucial part played by the SC pradhan while in office. This observation can also be worrisome: it plays against the argument that reservation should be used as a transitory tool. However, results should once again be interpreted with caution. Beaman et al. (2009) underlie that gender quotas are more effective after a second reserved term than after only one reserved term. However, the law on reservation is recent, villages had been reserved at most once when the data was collected. Fourthly, do villages with SC reservations display a general amelioration of between-group relations? I check this for between-caste relations, because SC pradhans could care about other low castes in the village (although for OBC the effect may be blurred by the fact that OBC are the dominant high caste in some villages). Reservations for the SCs does not affect either the OBCs or the STs street access (table 7 column 3). Conversely, does seat reservation to other low castes improve the SCs access to streets? I focus on reservations for the OBCs because of sample restrictions on reservations for the STs. Reservations for OBCs has no impact on SCs access to streets (column 5, table 7). If they had one, it would be a worsening. 20 Lastly, I check whether Muslims street exclusions, grounded in their religious identity, react to SC reservation. It should not be the case. Muslim exclusions are grounded in a Hindu/Muslim divide while reservations for low castes aim at reducing the low/high caste gap. Reassuringly, table 7 column 5 confirms that the logic at play with SC reservations is only a caste logic. The percentage of Muslim households excluded from streets dropped from 27 to 16% over the period. But the increase in Muslim households access to streets is independent of SC quotas. In the end, SC households access to streets appears to be improved by reservation of the pradhan s 20 This could be interpreted directly, if OBCs are willing to insist on their traditionally higher caste status than SCs and enforce untouchability practices more once elected. This can also be interpreted indirectly as having the pradhan position reserved for an OBC prevents any SC to be elected and elected SC improve SC access to streets on average (even if the impact is lead by pradhan on SC reserved seats). In line with the latter interpretation, if the interaction term for SC seats reservation is omitted, the OBC reservation remains at 0.05 but becomes significant at 10% (result not included). 18

19 seat to a SC. The effect is observed only within the SC group, other castes are not concerned. The effect increases in time, but does not last after the end of the reserved term. Table 6: Robustness: reduced sample (no past reservation), or national sample (all Indian states) (1) (2) (3) (4) Cross Section Cross Section Panel Panel NO PAST RES ALL INDIA NO PAST RES ALL INDIA caste exclu caste exclu caste exclu caste exclu SC*res_SC ** ** *** *** (0.0526) (0.0337) (0.0340) (0.0213) SC*pradh_SC * *** (0.0463) (0.0275) (0.0246) (0.0206) SC *** *** (0.0201) (0.0106) Observations 35, ,029 70, ,788 village fix effects X X O O household controls X X O O time*village fix effects O O X X time*caste fix effects O O X X household fix effects O O X X R-square Robust standard errors in parentheses. Errors are clustered by village caste groups in column 1 and 2. Errors are two way clustered for time*village*caste and household levels in columns 4 and 5. Controls included (columns 1 and 2): household caste category, household exclusion from streets in 1996, the head s sex, education level (above or below primary), age, income and occupation with a dummy for whether the primary income source comes from agriculture. SC reservation and SC pradhan main effects are absorbed by villages fix effects. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<

20 Table 7: Robustness: the effect of reservation in time, and comparison with other other groups (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) caste exclu caste exclu caste exclu caste exclu religious exclu SC*res_SC *** *** *** (0.0266) (0.0240) (0.0235) SC*res_SCY (0.0418) SC*res_SCY *** (0.0565) SC*res_SCY *** (0.0260) SC*res_SCY *** (0.0352) SC*previous_res_SC (0.0630) ST*res_SC (0.0513) OBC*res_SC (0.0140) Mus*res_SC (0.0423) SC*res_OBC (0.0214) SC*pradh_SC * ** *** ** (0.0239) (0.0225) (0.0212) (0.0221) SC*previous_pradh_SC (0.0543) ST*pradh_SC 0.117** (0.0547) OBC*pradh_SC (0.0139) Mus*pradh_SC (0.0218) 20 SC*pradh_OBC (0.0224) Observations 79,972 79,272 79,972 79,706 79,972