Fractionalization

Alberto Alesina, Arnaud Devleeschauwer, William Easterly, Sergio Kurlat, Romain Wacziarg

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    We provide new measures of ethnic, linguistic, and religious fractionalization for about 190 countries. These measures are more comprehensive than those previously used in the economics literature and we compare our new variables with those previously used. We also revisit the question of the effects of ethnic, linguistic, and religious heterogeneity on the quality of institutions and growth. We partly confirm and partly modify previous results. The patterns of cross-correlations between potential explanatory variables and their different degree of endogeneity makes it hard to make unqualified statements about competing explanations for economic growth and the quality of government. Our new data, which features the underlying group structure of ethnicities, religions and languages, also allows the computation of alternative measures of heterogeneity, and we turn to measures of polarization as an alternative to the commonly used index of fractionalization.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)155-194
    Number of pages40
    JournalJournal of Economic Growth
    Volume8
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jun 2003

    Keywords

    • Ethnic heterogeneity
    • Government quality
    • Growth

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Economics and Econometrics

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