Public good or public bad? Indigenous institutions and the demand for public goods

Aldo Elizalde, Eduardo Hidalgo and Nayeli Salgado

No 23-01, QUCEH Working Paper Series from Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History

Abstract: This paper argues that the underprovision of public goods can be partly explained by lower demand from Indigenous groups with high preferences for Indigenous identity and a high capacity for coordination. Examining the post-Mexican Revolution period (1920s-1950s), when the state used the first road network for nation-building, our diff-in-diff analysis shows that pre-colonial political centralisation is associated with less road infrastructure. This is attributed to stronger capacity for collective action and stronger Indigenous identity preferences. Finally, we show that poor road infrastructure today is linked to lower economic performance.

Keywords: Indigenous institutions; public good provision; collective action; Indigenous identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 H79 N7 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his, nep-pub and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202301

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