Supplementary information files for "Do educated politicians facilitate better public health? Evidence from India"

Supplementary files for article "Do educated politicians facilitate better public health? Evidence from India"Political representatives and their directives are discredited when there is an instance of rising mortality. However, there is limited empirical evidence linking public health outcomes to the quality of politicians. We investigate whether electing political leaders with higher levels of formal education affects child survival. Using an instrumental variable strategy exploiting quasi-experimental outcomes of close elections, we find that college-graduate politicians lead to better child health outcomes, i.e., a reduction in neonatal, infant, and under-five mortality in the regions they are elected from. We explore the potential channels of graduate leaders’ impact, drawing from early life and health infrastructure investments. We also find heterogeneous impacts of graduate leaders on child mortality across states with varying levels of institutional quality and based on the leaders’ political affiliation.© The Author(s), CC BY 4.0《受过教育的政客能否助力更优质的公共卫生？来自印度的实证证据》一文补充材料。当某一地区死亡率攀升时，政治代表及其施政举措往往会丧失公信力，但目前将公共卫生绩效与政客素质相联系的实证研究仍较为有限。本研究旨在探究选举受正规教育程度更高的政治领袖是否会改善儿童生存状况。本研究采用基于势均力敌选举准实验结果的工具变量（instrumental variable）策略，发现当选的大学毕业政客能够改善其所代表选区的儿童健康绩效，具体表现为新生儿死亡率、婴儿死亡率及五岁以下儿童死亡率的降低。本研究还从早期生命健康与卫生基础设施投入的维度，探讨了高学历领袖发挥影响的潜在路径。此外，本研究还发现，在制度质量水平各异的各邦中，基于领袖所属政治派别的不同，高学历领袖对儿童死亡率的影响存在异质性。© 作者，CC BY 4.0