Data and Code for: Defector Politicians and Economic Growth: Evidence from India

Political defectors refer to politicians who switch parties. This paper uses a close-electionregression discontinuity (RD) model to estimate the impact of electing political defectors toIndian state legislatures on economic growth (proxied by night-light growth) in their electoralconstituencies. I estimate that the election of a defector from the governing party causes a 0.13–0.48 percentage point (2–7.5%) increase in annual GDP growth in their constituency. Further,I find strong evidence that this increased growth is not driven by time-invariant ways in whichdefectors differ from non-defectors. Therefore, defectors improve economic outcomes in theirconstituencies either because (1) Defection provides politicians with resources and influence(for example in the form of ministerial positions) that they use to benefit their constituents, orbecause (2) Parties recruit politicians with increasing political influence, status or competencefor defection. The evidence on which of these two channels explains the effect is inconclusive.