Intergroup Cooperation and Public Goods Provision in India

• In Event: Public Goods Provision in Urban Areas: Evidence from South Asian Cities

Abstract

What are the conditions under which ethnically diverse communities are willing to cooperate for public goods provision? Based on a survey experiment in slum settlements in Delhi, this paper tests whether and how informal mechanisms of accountability at the very local level affect cooperation across Hindu-Muslim lines in improving drainage and sewage in urban slum areas in Delhi, India. We find that willingness to contribute and to encourage others to participate in the program varies by religious identity, with Muslims rather than Hindu more likely to respond to both the in-group underperformance and the accountability treatments. While existing studies have explored how minority groups are more distrustful of public institutions like the police and courts and may be less likely to contribute towards public goods provision, the relative role of social norms and in-group policing mechanisms in minority communities has received less attention in the literature. By joining insights from social psychology with research on development at the very local level, and showing how effects may vary across groups with differential minority and majority status, this research potentially advances existing research on diversity and public goods provision and on social accountability.

Authors

• Poulomi Chakrabarti, Queen's University

• Melani Cammett, Harvard University

• David Alexander Romney, Harvard University