Election Outcomes and the Poor: Evidence from the Consumption of Scheduled Castes and Tribes in India.

This article investigates whether parliamentary election outcomes affect the consumption of households belonging to scheduled castes and tribes (SC/STs), which are the poorest Indian households and constitute one-quarter of the population. Using arguably exogenous variation in party affiliation introduced by close election outcomes, this article finds that expenditures of SC/ST households were higher in regions where candidates more sympathetic to the groups were successful. These results demonstrate that SC/ST welfare responds to election outcomes in instances when successful politicians do not belong to SC/STs themselves and that electing candidates from left-leaning political parties can have a significant economic impact on the lives of poor and minority voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]