Development from Representation? A Study of Quotas for the Scheduled Castes in India Francesca R. Jensenius * July 2015 This is a pre-copyedited version of an article appearing in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol 7, no. 3 pp. 196–220. Abstract This paper estimates the constituency-level development effects of quotas for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) in India, using a unique dataset of development indicators for more than 3,100 state assembly constituencies in 15 Indian states in 1971 and 2001. Matching constituencies on pre-treatment variables from 1971, I find that 30 years of quotas had no detectable constituency-level effect on overall development or redistribution to SCs in reserved constituencies. Interviews with politicians and civil servants in 2010 and 2011 suggest that these findings can be explained by the power of political parties and the electoral incentives created by the quota system. * Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. C.J. Hambros plass 2D Pb 8159 Dep, 0033 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: fj@nupi.no. I am very grateful for all comments received on previous versions of this paper. Special thanks go to Gani Aldashev, Leonardo Arriola, Sam Asher, Guilhem Cassan, Karen Celis, Pradeep Chhibber, Ruth Collier, Thad Dunning, Anirban Mitra, Paul Novosad, Jasjeet Sekhon, Vasundhara Sirnate, Pavithra Suryanarayan, and anonymous reviewers for valuable comments. 1