Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross-Section of Countries

Alberto Alesina and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya

No w0120, Working Papers from New Economic School (NES)

Abstract: This paper has three goals. The first, and perhaps the most important, is to provide a new compilation of data on ethnic, linguistic and religious composition at the sub-national level for a large number of countries. This data set allows us to measure segregation of di¤erent ethnic, religious and linguistic groups within the same country. The second goal is to correlate measures of segregation with measures of quality of the polity and policymaking. The third is to construct an instrument that helps to overcome the endogeneity problem that arises because groups move within country borders, partly in response to policies. Our results suggest that more ethnically and linguistically segregated countries, i.e., those where groups live more spatially separately, have a substantially lower quality of government. In contrast, we find no relationship between religious segregation and the quality of government.

Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2008-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nes.ru/files/Preprints-resh/WP120.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross Section of Countries (2011)
Working Paper: Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross-Section of Countries (2011)
Working Paper: Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross-Section of Countries (2011)
Working Paper: Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross Section of Countries (2011)
Working Paper: Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross-Section of Countries (2008)
Working Paper: Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross-Section of Countries (2008)
Working Paper: Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross-Section of Countries (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0120

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