A Generalized Index of Fractionalization

Walter Bossert, Conchita D’ambrosio, and Eliana La Ferrara
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Conchita D'Ambrosio

Cahiers de recherche from Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to contribute to the economic literature on ethnic and cultural diversity by proposing a new index that is informationally richer and more flexible than the commonly used ‘ethno-linguistic fractionalization’ (ELF) index. We characterize a measure of diversity among individuals that takes as a primitive the individuals, as opposed to ethnic groups, and uses information on the extent of similarity among them. Compared to existing indices, our measure does not require that individuals are pre-assigned to exogenously determined categories or groups. We show that our generalized index is a natural extension of ELF and is also simple to compute. We also provide an empirical illustration of how our index can be operationalized and what difference it makes as compared to the standard ELF index. This application pertains to the pattern of fractionalization in the United States.

Keywords: Diversity; Similarity; Ethno-Linguistic Fractionalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A Generalized Index of Fractionalization (2011)
Working Paper: A Generalized Index of Fractionalization (2008)
Working Paper: A Generalized Index of Fractionalization (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mtl:montec:01-2008

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