Replication Data for: Indirect Rule and Public Goods Provision: Evidence from Colonial India

This paper contributes to the conflicting literature about indirect rule by delivering a new theoretical explanation for the persistent e ects of indirect rule on contemporary provision of public goods. It looks at a single region of India which has areas that his- torically experienced both direct and dindirect rule. The theoretical mechanism focuses on the principal-agent problem and the incentives that it produces for local leaders. Unlike local princes, colonizers were under stricter oversight and had to be more ac- countable to the top due to the obligations to extract resources. A spatial regression discontinuity design is used to compare directly and indirectly ruled territories. The empirical results show that indirect rule has predominantly long-term negative effects on the provision of selected public goods.