Community-level ethnic diversity and community-level socio-economic development: evidence from 20 African countries

David Fielding

New Zealand Economic Papers, 2024, vol. 58, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: There is evidence for a strong negative association between country-level socio-economic development and country-level ethnic diversity. One explanation for this association is that diversity is associated with less social capital, hampering co-operative economic activity and good governance. However, evidence at lower levels of geographical aggregation is mixed, with some evidence that community-level development is positively associated with community-level diversity. One explanation for this difference is that repeated inter-group contact mitigates the negative consequences of diversity and promotes the adoption of capacity-enhancing innovative practices. This paper uses household survey data from 20 African countries to explore the association of community-level development with both community-level diversity and diversity at a higher level of geographical aggregation. Within this single dataset, we find strong evidence that the first association is positive and the second is negative. We also provide some evidence that the positive association is at least partly explained by an innovation channel.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00779954.2023.2272177 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:nzecpp:v:58:y:2024:i:1:p:1-19

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RNZP20

DOI: 10.1080/00779954.2023.2272177

Access Statistics for this article

New Zealand Economic Papers is currently edited by Dennis Wesselbaum

More articles in New Zealand Economic Papers from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().