Features of countries’ heterogeneity over ethnic diversity: cases of Sri-Lanka, USA, PRC

Dmitry Sergeevich Vaskin () and Alexander Shapoval
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Dmitry Sergeevich Vaskin: National Research University Higher School of Economics

Spatial Economics=Prostranstvennaya Ekonomika, 2017, issue 3, 19-39

Abstract: We explore countries’ heterogeneity over ethnic diversity on the example of Sri-Lanka, PRC, and USA. The ethnic diversity is estimated with entropy-like indices, the Gini-Simpson index, and a fragmentation index M that is based on the share of the dominating ethnos. We posit that ethnic diversity of regions is related to their geographical locations. We claim that ordering of regions with respect to their ethnic diversity is not sensitive to the choice of specific measure of diversity. Heterogeneity of countries is described with empirical cumulative distribution function of regions. Choosing index M as a measure of diversity, we exhibit that the corresponding cumulative distribution function is close to linear in Sri-Lanka and USA, unlike in PRC where the level of ethnic diversity is low and single ethnos dominates in the third of all regions. We introduce a probabilistic model in order to explain empirical findings. The model is based on the assumption that individuals prefer to live with people of their own ethnos. The model distribution of regions matches the distribution computed with real data

Keywords: index of ethnic diversity; probabilistic model of allocation; cumulative distribution function of regions; Sri Lanka; USA; PRC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:far:spaeco:y:2017:i:3:p:19-39

DOI: 10.14530/se.2017.3.019-039

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