IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-22-00847.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The importance of ethnicity in perceived school and clinic quality in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Erickosowo Tiku

    (University of Pittsburgh)

  • Kevin Sylwester

    (Southern Illinois University)

Abstract

Using two rounds of the Afrobarometer surveys, we consider to what extent ethnicity matters for perceived access and quality of education and health facilities. We allow associations to differ not only across time but across types of countries such as democracies versus nondemocracies. We find evidence of ethnic favoritism, but the degree of ethnic favoritism is similar in democracies and nondemocracies. However, less ethnic favoritism arises in sub-Saharan Africa's higher income countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Erickosowo Tiku & Kevin Sylwester, 2024. "The importance of ethnicity in perceived school and clinic quality in Africa," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(2), pages 672-689.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00847
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2024/Volume44/EB-24-V44-I2-P51.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    2. Kasara, Kimuli, 2007. "Tax Me If You Can: Ethnic Geography, Democracy, and the Taxation of Agriculture in Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 159-172, February.
    3. Beiser-McGrath, Janina & Müller-Crepon, Carl & Pengl, Yannick I., 2021. "Who Benefits? How Local Ethnic Demography Shapes Political Favoritism in Africa," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 1582-1600, October.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284.
    5. Franck, Raphaël & Rainer, Ilia, 2012. "Does the Leader's Ethnicity Matter? Ethnic Favoritism, Education, and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 294-325, May.
    6. Masagus M. Ridhwan & Peter Nijkamp & Affandi Ismail & Luthfi M.Irsyad, 2022. "The effect of health on economic growth: a meta-regression analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(6), pages 3211-3251, December.
    7. José G. Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2021. "Ethnic Diversity and Growth: Revisiting the Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(3), pages 521-532, July.
    8. De Luca, Giacomo & Hodler, Roland & Raschky, Paul A. & Valsecchi, Michele, 2018. "Ethnic favoritism: An axiom of politics?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 115-129.
    9. William Easterly & Jozef Ritzen & Michael Woolcock, 2006. "Social Cohesion, Institutions, And Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 103-120, July.
    10. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    11. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 2015. "Human Capital and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 85-88, May.
    12. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Janet Exornam Ocloo & Diana Siawor-Robertson, 2017. "Ethnic Diversity and Health Outcomes," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 1077-1112, December.
    13. Fearon, James D. & Kasara, Kimuli & Laitin, David D., 2007. "Ethnic Minority Rule and Civil War Onset," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 187-193, February.
    14. Gisselquist, Rachel M. & Leiderer, Stefan & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2016. "Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Goods Provision in Zambia: Evidence of a Subnational “Diversity Dividend”," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 308-323.
    15. Mahsa Akbari & Duman Bahrami‐Rad & Erik O. Kimbrough & Pedro P. Romero & Sadegh Alhosseini, 2020. "An Experimental Study Of Kin And Ethnic Favoritism," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(4), pages 1795-1812, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leoné Walters & Manoel Bittencourt & Carolyn Chisadza, 2023. "Public infrastructure provision and ethnic favouritism: Evidence from South Africa," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 33-65, January.
    2. Franck, Raphaël & Rainer, Ilia, 2012. "Does the Leader's Ethnicity Matter? Ethnic Favoritism, Education, and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 294-325, May.
    3. Pierre André & Paul Maarek & Fatoumata Tapo, 2018. "Ethnic Favoritism: Winner Takes All or Power Sharing? Evidence from school constructions in Benin," THEMA Working Papers 2018-03, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    4. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    5. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    6. Joseph Flavian Gomes, 2020. "The health costs of ethnic distance: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 195-226, June.
    7. Andrew Dickens, 2017. "Ethnolinguistic Favoritism in African Politics," Working Papers 1702, Brock University, Department of Economics.
    8. Dieu Ne Dort Talla Fokam & Benjamin Fomba Kamga, 2023. "Ethnic diversity and poverty: the role of institutional quality," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 70(1), pages 27-61, March.
    9. Porten, John & Rhee, Inbok & Gibson, Clark, 2022. "Ethnicity is not public service destiny: The political logic of service distribution in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    10. Yonatan Dinku & Dereje Regasa, 2021. "Ethnic Diversity and Local Economies," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(3), pages 348-367, September.
    11. Elena Perra, 2022. "Road to Division: Ethnic Favouritism in the Provision of Road Infrastructure in Ethiopia," Working Papers - Economics wp2022_01.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    12. Indra de Soysa & Synøve Almås, 2019. "Does Ethnolinguistic Diversity Preclude Good Governance? A Comparative Study with Alternative Data, 1990‐2015," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 604-636, November.
    13. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    14. Robin Burgess & Remi Jedwab & Edward Miguel & Ameet Morjaria & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2015. "The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1817-1851, June.
    15. Thomas Farole & Andres Rodriguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2007. "Social capital, rules, and institutions: A cross-country investigation," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03461998, HAL.
    16. Casey, Gregory P. & Owen, Ann L., 2014. "Inequality and Fractionalization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 32-50.
    17. Sundar Ponnusamy & Mohammad Abbas Hakeem, 2024. "Ethnic inequality and public health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 41-58, January.
    18. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Historical Legacies and African Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 53-128, March.
    19. Indra de Soysa, 2011. "Another Misadventure of Economists in the Tropics? Social Diversity, Cohesion, and Economic Development," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 3-31, March.
    20. Sania Ashraf & Cristina Bicchieri & Upasak Das & Tanu Gupta & Alex Shpenev, 2024. "Learning from diversity: ``jati" fractionalization, social expectations and improved sanitation practices in India," Discussion Papers 24-01, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ethnic Favoritism; Education; Health; sub-Saharan Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00847. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.