Thirsty Cities

Authoritarian China delivers more public goods than democratic India, a result that runs against the common view that democracies provide more. China outperforms India in education, healthcare, public transport, and basic necessities such as drinking water and electricity, even though earlier studies tied stronger public goods to regime type.

The author contends that the type of government does not determine how public goods turn out. Drawing on evidence from the municipal water sectors of China and India, the book shows how a social contract, an informal institution, shapes the design of formal institutions, and how that design in turn accounts for differences in public goods provision.