Religion , Political Identity and Public Health Delivery

This paper analyzes whether the religious identity of political leaders in India influences policy-determined variation in health outcomes, both for citizens of their religious group and for the population as a whole. In order to analyze the causal effect of the religious identity of politicians, we take advantage of the fact that some Muslim politicians contested in close elections against non-Muslim politicians. Results show that the presence of Muslim politicians significantly reduces infant and neonatal mortality, consistent with positive selection of Muslim candidates in constituencies in which Muslims have a population minority (Banerjee and Pande 2007). We do not find evidence of religious favoritism: Muslims and non-Muslims benefit equally from the presence of Muslim politicians. JEL Codes: I15, J13, H41, P16 * Contact: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]. We thank Peter Gerrish and Maya Shivakumar for excellent research assistance. We are grateful to Bradford City Council for sending us the software used to decode religion from name and to Simon Burgess and Ed Fieldhouse for directing us to it.