Utilizing the data I collected on a nationally mandated school meal program in India, I examine the extent to which children benefit from the targeted public transfer. Relying upon built-in randomness in whether a child's 24-hour food consumption recall was for a school or non-school day, I find...

We construct a model of redistributive politics where the central government is opportunistic and uses its discretion to make transfers to state governments on the basis of political considerations. These considerations are the alignment between the incumbent parties at the central and state...