This paper has the objective of showing that identity based voting will lead to improvements in household welfare through increased access to welfare programs. Using newly available data from rural India, we establish that identity based voting will lead to enhanced participation in welfare...

Does party polarization affect the electoral prospects of a new centrist candidate? The paper investigates this question in the context of a laboratory experiment where a centrist candidate is added to the race between a left candidate and a right candidate. The experimental design varies the...

We examine the effect of electoral system on vote-buying incentives and the effectiveness of vote buying. We find that under SNTV greater numbers of candidates in a district, larger district magnitude, or higher effective threshold are all associated with prevalent vote-buying practices. In...