Electoral Cycle of Pollution: Evidence from India

Abstract

<p>The rising public concern about the environment has been pushing up the demand for environmental policy outputs. How does electoral incentive shape government intervention in environmental issues? Leveraging quasi-exogenous variation in the staggered timing of the general election schedule with satellite data in India, we use a difference-in-differences design and show that local pollution tracks the electoral cycle under the representative democracy: air quality is moderate during election season and deteriorates dramatically after the polling date. The effect is robust to the alternative estimation methods. The study also reveals substantial cross-sectional heterogeneity. A more pronounced electoral cycle in air quality is observed in regions where the incumbent candidate wields local political power. Intriguingly, the interplay between electoral pressure and political power reveals that constituencies experiencing high competition and where the incumbent candidate holds local power exhibit the most pronounced variations in air quality throughout the electoral cycle. Furthermore, in constituencies grappling with severe air pollution, the electoral cycle in air quality becomes more intense.<br></p>