Ethnic diversity and poverty: the role of institutional quality

Dieu Ne Dort Talla Fokam () and Benjamin Fomba Kamga ()
Additional contact information
Dieu Ne Dort Talla Fokam: University of Dschang
Benjamin Fomba Kamga: University of Yaounde 2

International Review of Economics, 2023, vol. 70, issue 1, No 3, 27-61

Abstract: Abstract The main objective of this study is to analyze the role of institutional quality in the effect of ethnic diversity on poverty. The empirical analysis covers a sample of 96 countries. The main results obtained using the Ordinary Least Square and Two-Staged Least Square approaches show that ethnic diversity has a positive effect on poverty, but the extent of this effect depends on the quality of institutions. Ethnic diversity contributes significantly to the increase in poverty in countries with poor institutional quality, while in countries with good institutional quality, its effect is not significant. When the quality of institutions is poor, ethnically diverse countries generally experience major problems of inequality arising from discrimination, social exclusion, and social polarization. One of the main consequences of these problems is the increase in poverty. As a key policy implication, policymakers in ethnically diverse countries should improve the quality of their institutions as a priority to address the issue of poverty.

Keywords: Ethnic diversity; Poverty; Institutional quality; Fractionalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 J15 O17 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12232-022-00408-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:inrvec:v:70:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s12232-022-00408-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cy/journal/12232/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s12232-022-00408-1

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Economics is currently edited by Luigino Bruni

More articles in International Review of Economics from Springer, Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().