The geography of linguistic diversity and the provision of public goods

Gomes, Joseph Flavian; Ortuño‐Ortín, Ignacio

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2019.102384

Cited by 46 publications

(53 citation statements)

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“…Finally, our results suggest that the growing number of studies exploiting subnational variation in diversity should use spatial boundaries at levels of aggregation that are outcome-relevant. 9 This echoes recent work arguing that local diversity can have different effects than diversity at the aggregate, country level given the different nature of interaction within and between jurisdictions (Alesina and Zhuravskaya, 2011;Desmet et al, 2016;Montalvo and Reynal-Querol, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions

Bazzi

Gudgeon

2018

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This paper argues that redrawing subnational political boundaries can transform ethnic divisions. We use a natural policy experiment in Indonesia to show how the effects of ethnic diversity on conflict depend on the political units within which groups are organized. Redistricting along group lines can reduce conflict, but these gains are undone or even reversed when the new borders introduce greater polarization. These adverse effects of polarization are further amplified around majoritarian elections, consistent with strong incentives to capture new local governments in settings with ethnic favoritism. Overall, our findings illustrate the promise and pitfalls of redistricting in diverse countries.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions

Bazzi

Gudgeon

2018

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“…6 It also provides a window into contemporary debates about national 4 Other recent work on nation building examines how public media (Blouin and Mukand 2016), bureaucrat assignments (Okunogbe 2015), schooling (Bandiera et al forthcoming), shared religious experience (Clingingsmith, Khwaja, and Kremer 2009), and external enemies (Dell and Querubin 2018) influence intergroup tolerance and national identity. 5 This interplay between local and aggregate diversity features in cross-country studies by Alesina and Zhuravskaya (2011) and Desmet, Gomes, and Ortuño-Ortín (2016) and is an emerging theme in the political science literature covered by Enos (2017). 6 There is comparatively little empirical work on either setting.…”

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confidence: 98%

Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building

Bazzi

Gaduh

Rothenberg

et al. 2019

American Economic Review

157

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We use a population resettlement program in Indonesia to identify long-run effects of intergroup contact on national integration. In the 1980s, the government relocated two million ethnically diverse migrants into hundreds of new communities. We find greater integration in fractionalized communities with many small groups, as measured by national language use at home, intermarriage, and children’s name choices. However, in polarized communities with a few large groups, ethnic attachment increases and integration declines. Residential segregation dampens these effects. Social capital, public goods, and ethnic conflict follow similar patterns. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of localized contact in shaping identity. (JEL D63, J12, J15, J18, O15, R23, Z13)

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“…Our primary data source is LandScan (2012) from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the USA, which is now being used in some research (e.g. Desmet et al (2018)). Oak Ridge takes population data from censuses and other sources worldwide on as fine a spatial scale for each country as they can obtain.…”

Section: Landscan Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Urban Economic Density

Henderson¹,

Nigmatulina²,

Kriticos³

2018

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At the heart of urban economics are agglomeration economies, which drive the existence and extent of cities and are also central to structural transformation and the urbanization process. This paper evaluates the use of different measures of economic density in assessing urban agglomeration effects, by examining how well they explain household income differences across cities and neighborhoods in six African countries. We examine simple scale and density measures and more nuanced ones which capture in second moments the extent of clustering within cities. The evidence suggests that more nuanced measures attempting to capture within-city differences in the extent of clustering do no better than a simple density measure in explaining income differences across cities, at least for the current degree of accuracy in measuring clustering. However, simple city scale measures such as total population are inferior to density measures and to some degree misleading. We find large household income premiums from being in bigger and particularly denser cities over rural areas in Africa, indicating that migration pull forces remain very strong in the structural transformation process. Moreover, the marginal effects of increases in urban density on household income are very large, with density elasticities of 0.6. In addition to strong city level density effects, we find strong neighborhood effects. For household incomes, both overall city density and density of the own neighborhood matter.

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The geography of linguistic diversity and the provision of public goods

Abstract: NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Cited by 46 publications

References 50 publications

The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions

The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions

Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building

Measuring Urban Economic Density

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