Diversity of Communities and Economic Development: An Overview

Gustav Ranis ()
Additional contact information
Gustav Ranis: Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on the impact of ethnic diversity on economic development. Ethnically polarized societies are less likely to agree on the provision of public goods and more likely to engage in rent seeking activities providing lower levels of social capital. Initial conditions are important determinants of adverse development outcomes. The role of decentralization, democracy and markets as potential remedies are discussed. The paper then presents a number of preliminary hypotheses on the relationship between diversity and instability in order to stimulate future research.

Keywords: Africa; Diversity; Economic Growth; Instability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O40 O43 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2011-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp1001.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:egc:wpaper:1001

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Benjamin King ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).