TY - JOUR
T1 - Ethnoracial Homogeneity and Public Outcomes
T2 - The (Non)effects of Diversity
AU - Kustov, Alexander
AU - Pardelli, Giuliana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018.
PY - 2018/11/1
Y1 - 2018/11/1
N2 - How does ethnoracial demography relate to public goods provision? Many studies find support for the hypothesis that diversity is related to inefficient outcomes by comparing diverse and homogeneous communities. We distinguish between homogeneity of dominant and disadvantaged groups and argue that it is often impossible to identify the effects of diversity due to its collinearity with the share of disadvantaged groups. To disentangle the effects of these variables, we study new data from Brazilian municipalities. While it is possible to interpret the prima facie negative correlation between diversity and public goods as supportive of the prominent deficit hypothesis, a closer analysis reveals that, in fact, more homogeneous Afro-descendant communities have lower provision. While we cannot rule out that diversity is consequential in other contexts, our results cast doubt on the reliability of previous findings related to the benefits of local ethnoracial homogeneity for public outcomes.
AB - How does ethnoracial demography relate to public goods provision? Many studies find support for the hypothesis that diversity is related to inefficient outcomes by comparing diverse and homogeneous communities. We distinguish between homogeneity of dominant and disadvantaged groups and argue that it is often impossible to identify the effects of diversity due to its collinearity with the share of disadvantaged groups. To disentangle the effects of these variables, we study new data from Brazilian municipalities. While it is possible to interpret the prima facie negative correlation between diversity and public goods as supportive of the prominent deficit hypothesis, a closer analysis reveals that, in fact, more homogeneous Afro-descendant communities have lower provision. While we cannot rule out that diversity is consequential in other contexts, our results cast doubt on the reliability of previous findings related to the benefits of local ethnoracial homogeneity for public outcomes.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0003055418000308
DO - 10.1017/S0003055418000308
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85048763335
SN - 0003-0554
VL - 112
SP - 742
EP - 757
JO - American Political Science Review
JF - American Political Science Review
IS - 4
ER -