[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-113251-en":3,"doc-seo-113251-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},113251,2336464648322,"Aria","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/2200025388227c56fec?_k=1778556882303663488",8,"Research & Report","The Timing of Elections and Neonatal Mortality - Evidence from India","The paper uncovers evidence of political cycles in child development outcomes in India. Using sibling comparisons, it finds that children born 0–11 months before scheduled state legislative assembly elections face a significantly lower risk of neonatal mortality. The effect is stronger in more politically competitive regions. Prenatal care usage rises before elections, including antenatal checkups and tetanus injections, especially for blood tests and abdominal examinations, suggesting improvements come from resource transfers from non-election to election years rather than broad health-system gains.","Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Pub lic Disclosure Authorized  \nThe World Bank Economic Review, 36(4), 2022, 972–998  \n[https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhac020](https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhac020)  \nArticle  \nThe Timing of Elections and Neonatal Mortality: Evidence from India  \nShampa Bhattacharjee  \nAbstract  \nThis paper uncovers evidence of political cycles in developmental outcomes in the Indian context. Comparing children born to the same mother, it shows that children born 0–11 months before scheduled state legislative assembly elections have a significantly lower risk of neonatal mortality. The effect of being born just before elections is higher in politically more competitive regions. The paper provides some evidence of the channels behind this result. The usage of prenatal care increases before elections and mothers of children born before elections are more likely to have antenatal checkups and tetanus injections during pregnancy. Components of antenatal checkups, like the probability of having a blood test or an abdominal examination during pregnancy, also increase before elections. The improvement in child health outcomes before elections seems to be driven by a transfer of resources from non-election to election years rather than an overall improvement in child health outcomes.  \nJEL classification: I12, I15, D72, O17  \nKeywords: neonatal mortality, child health; political cycles, democracy, elections  \n1. Introduction  \nTheoretical research on political cycles emphasizes that opportunistic politicians create favorable conditions before elections to increase their chance of being elected (Nordhaus 1975; Lindbeck 1976; Rogoff and Sibert 1988; Persson and Tabellini 1990) . This can have significant implications in developing countries since the impact of economic conditions on the lives of poor people is likely to be high (Pallage and Robe 2003; Paxson and Schady 2005; Bhalotra 2010) .  \nThis paper investigates the effect of the timing of scheduled state legislative assembly elections1 on neonatal mortality or deaths in the first month of life. The identification strategy compares neonatal mortality between siblings born 0–11 months before scheduled elections and those born in other years.2 Comparison across siblings controls selection issues that can arise from the fact that women who give  \nShampa Bhattacharjee is an assistant professor of Economics at Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, India. Her email address is [shampa.bhattacharjee@snu.edu.in. The author](shampa.bhattacharjee@snu.edu.in. The author) thanks the editor, the referees, Siwan Anderson, Nicole Fortin, Patrick Francois, Ashok Kotwal, Amartya Lahiri, Marit Rehavi, Arka Roy Chaudhuri, and the participants at the Economics Empirical Lunch at the University of British Columbia, CEA conference, Montreal, and Annual Conference on Economic Growth and Development, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi for their constructive comments and suggestions. A supplementary online appendix is available with this article at The World Bank Economic Review website.  \n1 Scheduled elections are held after a gap of five years as per constitutional mandate.  \n2 The results are robust to using an instrumental variable approach (See the section Instrumental Variable Analysis of the supplementary online appendix) .  \n© The Author(s) 2022 . Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK.  \nAll rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [journals.permissions@oup.com](journals.permissions@oup.com)  \nDownloaded from [https://academic.oup.com/wber/article/36/4/972/6754316 by Sectoral Library Rm MC-C3-220 user on](https://academic.oup.com/wber/article/36/4/972/6754316 by Sectoral Library Rm MC-C3-220 user on) 10 December 2023  \nbirth before elections can differ from those who give birth in off-election years. In addition to mother fixed effects, the estimating equation includes year, month, and order","cbCaisNZiliwXcqf","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaisNZiliwXcqf","pdf",437267,1,27,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Political cycles and the election timing mechanism\n## Identification strategy using sibling comparisons\n# Findings on neonatal mortality\n## Scheduled vs. unscheduled elections\n## Role of political competitiveness\n# Robustness and threats to identification\n## Time trends and fixed effects\n## Checks using fertility and birth characteristics\n# Relevance to the Indian context\n## Scheduled election structure and endogeneity considerations\n# Medical care as a proposed channel","[{\"question\":\"How does the paper measure the effect of election timing on neonatal mortality?\",\"answer\":\"It compares neonatal mortality between siblings born 0–11 months before scheduled state legislative assembly elections and siblings born in other years, using sibling comparisons with fixed effects to control selection issues.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the main result regarding scheduled elections?\",\"answer\":\"Neonatal mortality is lower by about 0.5 percentage points (around 11% of the mean) for children born 0–11 months preceding scheduled elections, while unscheduled elections show no influence.\"},{\"question\":\"What channel does the paper propose to explain the election-related change in outcomes?\",\"answer\":\"The paper examines medical care usage and finds prenatal care increases before elections, with higher antenatal checkups and tetanus injections, including increased likelihood of blood tests and abdominal examinations.\"}]",1784501849,68,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"the-timing-of-elections-and-neonatal-mortality-evidence-from-india","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-timing-of-elections-and-neonatal-mortality-evidence-from-india/113251/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-20","2026-07-19",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"How does the paper measure the effect of election timing on neonatal mortality?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"It compares neonatal mortality between siblings born 0–11 months before scheduled state legislative assembly elections and siblings born in other years, using sibling comparisons with fixed effects to control selection issues.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What is the main result regarding scheduled elections?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"Neonatal mortality is lower by about 0.5 percentage points (around 11% of the mean) for children born 0–11 months preceding scheduled elections, while unscheduled elections show no influence.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What channel does the paper propose to explain the election-related change in outcomes?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The paper examines medical care usage and finds prenatal care increases before elections, with higher antenatal checkups and tetanus injections, including increased likelihood 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