IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/1585.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ethnic diversity and growth: revisiting the evidence

Author

Abstract

The relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and economic growth is complex. Empirical research working with cross-country data nds a negative, or statistically insignificant, relationship. However, research at the city level usually finds a positive relationship between diversity and wages/productivity. Generally, the trade-off between the economic benefits of diversity and the costs of heterogeneity implies that the relationship between diversity and growth depends on the size of the area used as the unit of observation. In this paper we perform a systematic analysis of the effect of the size of geographical units on the relationship between ethnic diversity and growth. We nd a positive relationship for small geographical areas and no effect for large areas and countries. There are potentially different mechanisms that can explain this result depending on the structure of the economy and its level of development. In the case of Africa, we argue that a possible explanation of the positive relationship between diversity and growth is the increase in trade at the boundaries between ethnic groups due to ethnic specialization.

Suggested Citation

  • José Garcia Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2017. "Ethnic diversity and growth: revisiting the evidence," Economics Working Papers 1585, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/1585.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jha, Saumitra, 2013. "Trade, Institutions, and Ethnic Tolerance: Evidence from South Asia," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(4), pages 806-832, November.
    2. Elias Papaioannou, 2014. "National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 151-213.
    3. Jessie Bakens & Peter Mulder & Peter Nijkamp, 2013. "Economic Impacts Of Cultural Diversity In The Netherlands: Productivity, Utility, And Sorting," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 8-36, February.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Johann Harnoss & Hillel Rapoport, 2016. "Birthplace diversity and economic prosperity," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 101-138, June.
    5. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1802-1848, July.
    6. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2013. "The 'Out of Africa' Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 1-46, February.
    7. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2008. "Human Genetic Diversity and Comparative Economic Development," 2008 Meeting Papers 617, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Stelios Michalopoulos, 2012. "The Origins of Ethnolinguistic Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1508-1539, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Aker, Jenny C. & Klein, Michael W. & O'Connell, Stephen A. & Yang, Muzhe, 2014. "Borders, ethnicity and trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-16.
    11. Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The Political Economy of Hatred," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 45-86.
    12. Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano & Giovanni Peri, 2021. "Cities and cultures," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 6, pages 153-186, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Alberto Alesina & William Easterly & Janina Matuszeski, 2011. "Artificial States," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 246-277, April.
    14. Gotway C.A. & Young L.J., 2002. "Combining Incompatible Spatial Data," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 632-648, June.
    15. Desmet, Klaus & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2012. "The political economy of linguistic cleavages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 322-338.
    16. Easterly, William, 2001. "Can Institutions Resolve Ethnic Conflict?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(4), pages 687-706, July.
    17. Obie Porteous, 2019. "High Trade Costs and Their Consequences: An Estimated Dynamic Model of African Agricultural Storage and Trade," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 327-366, October.
    18. Nathan, Max, 2011. "The long term impacts of migration in British cities: diversity, wages, employment and prices," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 33577, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano & Giovanni Peri, 2021. "The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 7, pages 187-222, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Jens Suedekum & Katja Wolf & Uwe Blien, 2014. "Cultural Diversity and Local Labour Markets," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 173-191, January.
    21. Greif, Avner, 1993. "Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: the Maghribi Traders' Coalition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 525-548, June.
    22. Porteous, Obie C., 2015. "High Trade Costs and Their Consequences: An Estimated Model of African Agricultural Storage and Trade," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205776, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    23. Maxim Pinkovskiy & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2016. "Lights, Camera … Income! Illuminating the National Accounts-Household Surveys Debate," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 579-631.
    24. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    25. Paul Collier, 2001. "Implications of ethnic diversity," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 16(32), pages 128-166.
    26. Chad Sparber, 2010. "Racial Diversity and Macroeconomic Productivity across US States and Cities," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(1), pages 71-85.
    27. Oguzhan Dincer & Fan Wang, 2011. "Ethnic diversity and economic growth in China," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10.
    28. Montalvo, Jose G. & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2005. "Ethnic diversity and economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 293-323, April.
    29. repec:hal:pseose:hal-01304131 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Oguzhan Dincer & Fan Wang, 2011. "Ethnic diversity and economic growth in China," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10.
    31. Neil Lee, 2011. "Ethnic Diversity and Employment Growth in English Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(2), pages 407-425, February.
    32. Greif, Avner, 2000. "The fundamental problem of exchange: A research agenda in Historical Institutional Analysis," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 251-284, December.
    33. Max Nathan, 2011. "The Long Term Impacts of Migration in British Cities: Diversity, Wages, Employment and Prices," SERC Discussion Papers 0067, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Michael Danquah, 2020. "Ethnic diversity and informal work in Ghana," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-126, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Dieu Ne Dort Talla Fokam & Paul Ningaye & Celestin Chameni Nembua, 2020. "Ethnic Diversity Management and Poverty in Developing Countries," Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research, Pro Global Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 47-60, June.
    4. Chilosi, David & Nikolic, Stefan, 2021. "Vanishing borders: ethnicity and trade costs at the origin of the Yugoslav market," SocArXiv fsmch, Center for Open Science.
    5. Elizalde, Aldo & Hidalgo, Eduardo & Salgado, Nayeli, 2023. "Public good or public bad? Indigenous institutions and the demand for public goods," QUCEH Working Paper Series 23-01, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    6. Juan Felipe Riaño & Felipe Valencia Caicedo, 2024. "Collateral Damage: The Legacy of the Secret War in Laos," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(661), pages 2101-2140.
    7. Eleonora Guarnieri, 2023. "Cultural Distance and Ethnic Civil Conflict," CESifo Working Paper Series 10609, CESifo.
    8. Pham, Huong Dien, 2017. "Do cultural factors alter the relationship between risk attitudes and economic welfare?," TVSEP Working Papers wp-003, Leibniz Universitaet Hannover, Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, Project TVSEP.
    9. Mª Ángeles Caraballo & Eva Mª Buitrago, 2019. "Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Education. A Successful Pairing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-18, November.
    10. Vicente Rios & Beatriz Manotas-Hidalgo & Lisa Gianmoena, 2021. "Spatial Inequality, Civil Conflict and Cells: A Dynamic Spatial Probit Approach," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 2110, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
    11. Pablo Ponce & Nathalie Aguirre-Padilla & Cristiana Oliveira & José Álvarez-García & María de la Cruz del Río-Rama, 2020. "The Spatial Externalities of Tourism Activities in Poverty Reduction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-17, July.
    12. Manotas-Hidalgo, Beatriz & Pérez-Sebastián, Fidel & Campo-Bescós, Miguel Angel, 2021. "The role of ethnic characteristics in the effect of income shocks on African conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    13. N. I. Suslov & E. N. Isupova & A. I. Ivanova, 2022. "Ethnic Diversity in Russian Regions and Economic Growth: Theoretical Model and Its Approbation on Panel Data," Studies on Russian Economic Development, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 149-156, April.
    14. 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.

    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. Reynal-Querol, Marta & García-Montalvo, José, 2017. "Ethnic Diversity and Growth: Revisiting the Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 12400, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Ozbugday, Fatih Cemil, 2019. "Kültür ve Ekonomik Başarı [Culture and Economic Success]," MPRA Paper 96734, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Dirk Dohse & Robert Gold, 2013. "Measuring Cultural Diversity at a Regional Level. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 10," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46857.
    4. Chasapopoulos, Panagiotis, 2018. "The impact of international immigration and cultural diversity on economic performance, public attitudes and political outcomes in European regions," Other publications TiSEM d4a10f2a-c1a2-4edd-9887-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Mª Ángeles Caraballo & Eva Mª Buitrago, 2019. "Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Education. A Successful Pairing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-18, November.
    6. Eva M. Buitrago & M. Ángeles Caraballo, 2022. "Measuring social diversity in economic literature: An overview for cross‐country studies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 880-934, September.
    7. Thomas Kemeny, 2013. "Immigrant Diversity and Economic Development in Cities: A Critical Review," SERC Discussion Papers 0149, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Tom Kemeny & Abigail Cooke, 2017. "Urban Immigrant Diversity and Inclusive Institutions," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 93(3), pages 267-291, May.
    9. Alberto Alesina & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "Ethnic Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 428-488.
    10. Silje Haus-Reve & Abigail Cooke, 2019. "Do regional social capital and trust matter for immigrant diversity and wages?," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1932, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Nov 2019.
    11. Gradstein, Mark & Justman, Moshe, 2019. "Cultural interaction and economic development: An overview," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 243-251.
    12. Hodler, Roland & Valsecchi, Michele & Vesperoni, Alberto, 2021. "Ethnic geography: Measurement and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    13. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Daniel Hardy, 2015. "Cultural Diversity and Entrepreneurship in England and Wales," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(2), pages 392-411, February.
    14. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2011. "Cultural Diversity, Geographical Isolation, and the Origin of the Wealth of Nations," Department of Economics Working Papers 2011-15, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    15. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2016. "Linguistic Diversity, Standardization, and Disenfranchisement: Measurement and Consequences," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/277407, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Stephan Brunow & Hanna Brenzel, 2012. "The effect of a culturally diverse labour supply on regional income in the EU," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 461-485, November.
    17. Zhu, Junbing & Grigoriadis, Theocharis, 2020. "Chinese dialects, revolutionary war & economic performance," Discussion Papers 2020/7, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    18. Trung V. Vu, 2021. "Are genetic traits associated with riots? The political legacy of prehistorically determined genetic diversity," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 567-595, November.
    19. Emilio Depetris-Chauvin & Ömer Özak, 2015. "Population Diversity, Division of Labor and the Emergence of Trade and State," Documentos CEDE 14228, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    20. Oded Galor & Quamrul Ashraf, 2007. "Cultural Assimilation, Cultural Diffusion and the Origin of the Wealth of Nations," Working Papers 2007-3, Brown University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:upf:upfgen:1585. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    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.