The role of mass media in making governments responsive to the needs of cit
izens is a relatively neglected area in economics. We sketch a theoretical
example with a role for media in enhancing government responsiveness based
on asymmetric information between citizens and government. We then use data
for the period 1958-1992 on the extent to which Indian state governments r
esponded to food shortages via the public distribution of food, correlating
these with proxies of media, political and economic development. We find t
hat states that are more responsive tend to also be those with high levels
of newspaper circulation, electoral turnout and literacy. In contrast, rich
er states do not tend to be more responsive than poorer states. (C) 2001 El
sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.