local vs national vigilance

[prabhu.guptara@ubs.com]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers may be interested in the following item from the World Bank which
tends 
to be much maligned by some of our participants.

They may wish to note the welcome encouragement it provides for action: if 
indeed there is such vigilance at the local level, what can we do to
translate 
it into national vigilance?

prabhu guptara

Khemani, S.
 THE WORLD BANK; COUNTRY ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT, POLICY RESEARCH
     AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, 1818 H STREET, N.W. WASHINGTON, D.C.
     20433, U.S.A.23p.
 2001
 A1.199 WP 2557
 Voters in India are more vigilant in monitoring government at
     the local than at the national level. In state assembly
     elections voters reward incumbents for local income growth, and
     punish them for a rise in inequality, over their entire term in
     office. But in national elections voters behave myopically,
     rewarding growth in national income and a fall in inflation and
     inequality only in the year preceding the election.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the National Debate on System Reform.       debate@indiapolicy.org
Rules, Procedures, Archives:            http://www.indiapolicy.org/debate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------