Measuring ethnic stratification and its effect on trust in Africa

Roland Hodler, Sorawoot Srisuma, Alberto Vesperoni and Noémie Zurlinden

Journal of Development Economics, 2020, vol. 146, issue C

Abstract: We conjecture that mistrust and social conflict in a society may depend on ethnic stratification, i.e., the extent to which the hierarchy in socio-economic positions across individuals follows ethnolinguistic lines. We define and axiomatically characterize an index of ethnic stratification that generalizes the idea of between-group inequality to situations where data on economic and ethnolinguistic distances between pairs of individuals is available. We use Afrobarometer survey data to measure ethnic stratification at the level of towns and villages in 26 ethnically diverse African countries. We find that ethnic stratification is negatively related to trust in relatives, neighbors and other acquaintances, and positively related to nearby conflicts. These findings shed new light on the debate about the merits of conflict and contact theory.

Keywords: Measurement; Ethnic diversity; Between-group inequality; Trust; Social conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring Ethnic Stratification and its Effect on Trust in Africa (2018)
Working Paper: Measuring Ethnic Stratification and its Effect on Trust in Africa (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:146:y:2020:i:c:s030438782030050x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102475

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