Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments February 28, 2023 erstellt
Beschreibung:
The growing influence of the unholy union between financial resources and coercive power in the electoral sphere threatens the fundamental institutions of governance and can result in suboptimal political, social, and economic outcomes for a country. To ensure the effectiveness of a functional democracy, it is imperative to implement robust institutional checks that eliminate any undue advantage that may be gained by unsavory candidates through this insidious nexus. Failure to address this issue may result in negative externalities that extend beyond the electoral realm and may have significant implications for a nation's long-term economic prospects.In this paper, based on available data on assembly and general elections spanning from 2004 to 2019, and the "Check on Government" index data from IDEA's Global State of Democracy Indices, we have investigated the role of money-muscle power in electoral outcomes and its influence on public institutions in India. Our results demonstrate that candidates incentivized by crime are more likely to win elections. There is an increasing share of winning candidates with criminal backgrounds, particularly in states with low literacy rates. The concentration of such candidates is higher in the higher asset quintiles. We have further observed a weak positive premium effect of wealth and crime on the probability of winning. The decomposition of winning probability between candidates with and without criminal backgrounds reveals a relative advantage to the former. Along with wealth and education, affiliation to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and dominant regional parties are major differentiating factors for their relative advantage. Finally, the performance of public institutions is negatively influenced by the electoral outcome in favor of candidates with criminal backgrounds