Ethnic Diversity and Growth: Revisiting the Evidence

Marta Reynal-Querol and José García-Montalvo

No 992, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: The relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and economic growth is complex. Empirical research working with cross-country data finds a negative, or statistically insignificant, relationship. However, analysis at city level finds a positive effect of diversity on wages and productivity. Generally, there is a trade-off between the economic benefits of diversity and the costs of heterogeneity. Using cells of fixed size we find that the relationship between diversity and growth is positive for small geographical areas. In the case of Africa, we argue that the explanation is the increase in trade at the boundaries between ethnic groups due to ethnic specialization.

Keywords: economic growth; ethnic diversity; spatial analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N17 O10 O40 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-geo and nep-gro
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://bw.bse.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/992-file.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:992

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bruno Guallar ().