Dynamic Ethnic Fractionalization and Economic Growth in the Transition Economies from 1989 to 2007

Nauro Campos, Ahmad Saleh () and Vitaliy S. Kuzeyev ()
Additional contact information
Ahmad Saleh: Brunel University
Vitaliy S. Kuzeyev: affiliation not available

No 4597, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In their survey of the literature on ethnic fractionalization and economic performance, Alesina and La Ferrara (JEL 2005) identify two main directions for future research. One is to improve the measurement of diversity and the other to treat diversity as an endogenous variable. This paper tries to address these two issues: it investigates the effects of ethnic fractionalization on economic growth across countries using unique time-varying measures. We first replicate the finding of a weak effect of exogenous diversity on growth and then we show that accounting for how diversity changes over time and treating it as an endogenous variable makes a difference. Once diversity is instrumented (with lagged diversity and latitude), it shows a significant negative impact on economic growth which is robust to different specifications, polarization measures, econometric estimators, as well as to the use of an index of ethnic-religious-linguistic fractionalization.

Keywords: polarization; fractionalization; ethnic diversity; growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H1 O11 O55 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2009-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-fdg and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Journal of International Trade and Economic Development, 2011, 20 (2),129-152

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4597.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Dynamic Ethnic Fractionalization and Economic Growth in the Transition Economies from 1989 to 2007 (2009)
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:iza:izadps:dp4597

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().