Abstract Do electoral quotas for ethnic groups continue to improve their chances of winning elections after quotas are withdrawn? This is an important question since ethnic group quotas are common, and are often intended to be temporary. Using natural experiments, I find that electoral quotas for India's "scheduled castes" (SCs) fail to boost SCs' chances of winning office after they are discontinued. These results contrast with the significant positive effects of past women's quotas found in similar contexts.

Citation Bhavnani, Rikhil R. 2017. "Do the Effects of Temporary Ethnic Group Quotas Persist? Evidence from India." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 9 (3): 105-23 . DOI: 10.1257/app.20160030 Choose Format: BibTeX EndNote Refer/BibIX RIS Tab-Delimited