Ethnic Fractionalization Research Articles

Migrants and Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa: Theory and Evidence

Acts of xenophobia are a persistent feature of life in South Africa. Daily animosity often spills over into violence against both locals and mostly migrants and their economic enterprises. One argument is that xenophobia has characterized post-apartheid South Africa partly due to increased migration flows. Can migration cause xenophobia? Using data from Xenowatch Reports, we examine the impact of migration flows from Zimbabwe on the onset and persistence of acts of collective violence targeted at foreign nationals’ lives and their foreign-owned businesses in South Africa. Results show that increased migration flows from Zimbabwe into South Africa leads to ethnic polarization, cultural diversity, and intolerance by residents toward immigrants. The variable migrants has a positive but statistically insignificant effect on xenophobia. However, migration can impact xenophobia through inducing ethnic fractionalization, cultural diversity and ethnic polarization, intolerance, and hostility with the coefficients of ethnic fractionalization and cultural diversity being positive and statistically significant and supporting the hypothesis that more migration flows from Zimbabwe lead to more xenophobic attacks in South Africa. These findings aid our understanding of the economic consequences of xenophobia. JEL codes: Q15, Q32, Q54

Ethnic Fractionalization and Polarization in New Capital City of Nusantara, Indonesia: Analysis of Potential Conflict

This study analyzes ethnic fractionalization and polarization in the new Indonesian Capital of Nusantara (IKN), with a focus on the potential for ethnic conflict as the government directs significant resources towards its development. Data was collected from 54 villages within IKN territory over five months and analyzed quantitatively. The findings show a high ethnic fractionalization index of 0.79 and a slightly high polarization index of 0.61, indicating a moderate risk of conflict. However, the ethno-demographic and ethnopolitical conditions remain conducive to supporting IKN's development. While previous research has addressed ethnic conflict in Indonesia, few studies have examined its implications for major national projects like IKN's development. This study offers a new quantitative perspective on how ethnic diversity influences large-scale governmental projects, highlighting the role of ethnic fractionalization and polarization in shaping the stability of IKN's development. Although such a polarization index indicates the potential for conflict being slightly high, the ethno-demographic and ethnopolitical condition in IKN is still relatively conducive to providing supporting capacity to IKN development, viewed from a statistical and ethnopolitical perspective.

Resource rents, ethnic fractionalization and redistributive public sector employment

The resource curse literature often posits that public employment in resource-rich economies tends to be large, driven by motivations beyond public goods provision. One set of theories attributes this phenomenon to (ethnic) clientelism, but lacks robust empirical support. Another set of theories challenges the notion of (ethnic) clientelism, suggesting that the expansion of public sector employment serves as a form of social insurance in the absence administrative tools to redistribute income. This study diverges from the conventional story of an invariably positive association between resource abundance and public sector employment. Instead, I show that the positive correlation between resource abundance and public sector employment only holds when ethnic fractionalization is low. In countries with high levels of ethnic fractionalization, the relationship weakens and can even reverse. This is because an increase in public sector employment tends to dilute public sector wages, diminishing the attractiveness of public sector jobs as clientelist rewards. The empirical analysis supports this claim: when ethnic fractionalization is low, more resource rents correspond to higher public sector employment and lower (or even negative) public sector wage premiums; when ethnic fractionalization is high, the opposite holds: more resource rents correspond to fewer public sector jobs but larger public sector wage premiums.

Brotherhood and unity: ethnic diversity and economic performance in socialist Yugoslavia

AbstractLiterature on economic consequences of ethnic diversity suggests that ethnic diversity impedes economic growth in dictatorships, while inclusive policies may foster economic benefits from diversity. This paper investigates the impact of ethnic diversity on municipal economic growth in socialist Yugoslavia, a distinctive context due to its dictatorial regime’s active promotion of ethnic inclusion. Utilizing novel estimations of economic performance for 498 municipalities across the census years 1961, 1971, and 1981, the analysis based on seemingly unrelated regressions model reveals that higher ethnic diversity, measured through an ethnic fractionalization index is associated with slower economic growth of Yugoslav municipalities. The study is the first quantitative assessment of the economic consequences of ethnic diversity in Yugoslavia and provides nuanced insights into the effectiveness of inclusive policies, suggesting that while such policies may foster economic benefits, they might not fully counteract the economic drawbacks of ethnic diversity under dictatorship and in an economy that is not primarily driven by market forces.

Problem of the Plenty- Ethnic Fractionalization and Female Employment in Rural India

Problem of the Plenty- Ethnic Fractionalization and Female Employment in Rural India

Normative empirical concepts – a practical guiding tool for economists

ABSTRACT Economists use a variety of normative empirical concepts because the economy and morality are intertwined. Often, this normativity is intended and widely acknowledged, signaling the relevance and meaning of research. Sometimes, the objectivity of research and the findings obtained by using normative concepts is problematic. Written from the perspective of a practicing economist, the article offers a practical guiding tool to economists, suggesting how to be responsible in developing and using normative empirical concepts. It is based on valuable insights from the philosophy of science and codes of conduct. It illustrates the use of the guiding tool with the example of a normative empirical concept that is widely used in development economics: ‘ethnic fractionalization’. The conclusion is that applied economists should be more involved in being accountable for the normativity in our work and that we should ensure that, by using the tool, the normative concepts that we use are acceptable.

Effect of ethnic diversity on child labor: Empirical evidence from Ghana

AbstractOne of the persistent global problems today is child labor with the current estimates indicating that 160 million children were in child labor as at the beginning of 2020. To reduce child labor, it is important to unearth the factors that influence it for policy implementation. We contribute to the literature and policy by examining the impact of ethnic diversity on child labor, while considering the mediating effects of informal work and household poverty. Using ethnic fractionalization and polarization indexes, we find that a unit increase in ethnic diversity is associated with an increase in child labor. Gender‐wise, we find the effect to be bigger for male child workers. Based on location, we find that the effect is pronounced for working children living in rural areas. Also, our mediation analysis shows that informal work, and household poverty are the pathways through which ethnic diversity increases child labor.

Ethnic fractionalization and income inequality: the case of Kazakhstan

Ethnic diversity has an impact on many areas of social life, which has led to an extensive layer of research on relationships in this area. Many authors have studied in detail the impact of ethnic diversity on conflicts, instability, domestic politics, other various social and cultural aspects. At the same time, the relationship between ethnic fractionalization and economic parameters remains insufficiently studied, which leaves a wide field for relevant research, especially at the level of individual countries, since most of the work is devoted to cross-country comparative analysis of the relevant parameters. One of the most actual problems in the context of ethnic heterogeneity is its relationship with income inequality. This article presents the results of a study of the relationship between ethnic diversity, estimated on the basis of the ethno-linguistic fractionalization (ELF) index, and two indicators of income inequality — the Gini coefficient and the inter-decile income share ratio (S90/S10). The analysis of this relationship was carried out on the example of one country — Kazakhstan — by comparing the corresponding indicators for seventeen regions. The results of the analysis showed the presence of a stable and noticeable relationship, expressed in the growth of income inequality as ethnic diversity grows in the regions of the country. It was revealed that in the most ethnically homogeneous regions, income inequality indicators are minimal, while in the most ethnically diverse regions they are much higher. A significant correlation was also found between ethnic fractionalization and indicators of income inequality. The results obtained are generally correspond to the results of a number of cross-country studies, but in the case of Kazakhstan they are more distinct, which can be interpreted as confirmation of the relationship between ethnic diversity and income inequality in general.

Fighting over nation or state: States, communal demography, and the type of ethnic civil war

AbstractWe recognise nationalist and centre‐seeking ethnic civil wars as distinct types of conflict and draw on key ideas from political sociology to make hypotheses about the causes of each. First, we argue that the character of states shapes antistate actors in ways that channel ethnic conflict in different ways, with pluralist states promoting nationalist warfare but integrative states contributing to centre‐seeking civil war. Second, we propose that the relative power of communities affects the type of ethnic civil war, arguing that centre‐seeking civil war is most common in situations of communal multipolarity whereas nationalist civil war is concentrated in regions with asymmetric power relations. And because historical statehood promotes elements of pluralist states and asymmetric communal power relations, we hypothesise that the risk of nationalist civil war is high in places with large and longstanding states. To test these hypotheses, we use ethnic fractionalisation to measure configurations of communal power and the state antiquity index to measure level of historical statehood, create a variable measuring the extent to which colonial states were pluralist, and run panel analyses of the odds of civil war onset. With one possible exception, the findings support our hypotheses.

Ethnic Fractionalization, Ethnic Polarization, and Potential Conflict in Parent Districts of IKN

The purpose of this research is to determine the degree of ethnic fractionalization and polarization in the parent districts of the new Indonesian Capital of Nusantara (IKN), namely Kutai Kartanegara (Kukar) and North Penajam Paser (PPU) Districts, and assess the potential of ethnic conflict. The research involves quantitative analysis, where statistical formulas are used to calculate the ethnic fractionalization index (EFI) and ethnic polarization index (EPOI). The 2010 BPS population census, the most recent census based on ethnicity, is the primary data used for the core analysis. The study results reveal that both districts have a high level of ethnic diversity, with Kukar having a higher EFI than PPU (0.80 versus 0.75). However, PPU has a greater potential for conflict, as it has a higher EPOI (0.66) than Kukar (0.59-0.60). Considering the socio-political situation, the condition of ethnopolitics in Kukar is relatively conducive to providing support for the IKN development. In PPU, its ethnopolitical climate appears favorable for supporting the development of IKN. However, it is crucial to pay due attention to the issue of indigenous Paser people in IKN, as they represent the third largest ethnic group in Rings 1 and 2 of the IKN areas.

Social diversity and social cohesion in Britain.

We use data from a large-scale and nationally representative survey to examine whether there is in Britain a trade-off between social diversity and social cohesion. Using six separate measures of social cohesion (generalised trust, volunteering, giving to charity, inter-ethnic friendship, and two neighbourhood cohesion scales) and four measures of social diversity (ethnic fractionalisation, religious fractionalisation, percentage Muslim, and percentage foreign-born), we show that, net of individual covariates, there is a negative association between social diversity and most measures of social cohesion. But these associations largely disappear when neighbourhood deprivation is taken into account. These results are robust to alternative definitions of neighbourhood. We also investigate the possibility that the diversity--cohesion trade-off is found in more segregated neighbourhoods. But we find very little evidence to support that claim. Overall, it is material deprivation, not diversity, that undermines social cohesion.

Public goods and diversity in democracies and non‐democracies

AbstractThis paper analyzes how ethnic diversity affects the provision of public goods in democratic and non‐democratic societies when political parties compete for voter support by offering a mix of private and public goods. Our model implies that increasing diversity that leads to more heterogeneous preferences for public goods decreases the provision of public goods in democracies, where political power is distributed equally among citizens, while there is a weaker or no effect in non‐democracies, where political power is distributed unequally among citizens. When measuring diversity by ethnic fractionalization and public good provision by either levels of government expenses, expenditures on health, or life expectancy, we indeed observe a negative association between diversity and the provision of public goods in democracies but no or only a weak association in non‐democracies.

Fundamentals of Institutional Quality and Economic Freedom

ABSTRACT: Social scientists have extensively studied the causes of good institutions, including the origins of economic freedom. Results concerning the causes of different kinds of institutions are often similar, often concluding that the geography, environment, and culture are important factors. However, a recent political economy framework suggests that certain dimensions of economic freedom, namely specific dimensions of the size of government (government consumption, transfers and subsidies, and the top marginal tax rate), differ systematically from other dimensions of liberalization. This paper explores these arguments by constructing an index of a set of consensus predictors of institutional quality: ethnic fractionalization (predicts negatively), the natural log of the population size (negatively), absolute latitude (positively), natural resource rents (negatively), the presence of the country in the Americas (negatively), British legal origins (positively), the presence of the country in Eurasia (positively), and island geography (positively). The countries with the “best” fundamentals for institutional quality are Iceland, Ireland, Malta, Finland, and Cyprus, while the five with the “worst” fundamentals are Angola, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Ghana. It then takes this index of “fundamentals” of institutional quality and shows that, although they predict economic liberalism as a whole (as measured by the Economic Freedom of the World index) as they would predict other measures of institutional quality, they predict oppositely (i.e., corresponding to larger governments) for the dimensions of the size of government listed above. The result is congruent with the predictions of the political economy model. Additionally, this result is not contingent on the inclusion of any one of the “fundamental” variables, although natural resource rents and absolute latitude appear to be the most important variables. Countries with considerably more economic freedom than would be predicted by their fundaments include Peru, Singapore, the United States, Chile, and Canada; should deviations from fitted values be seen as presaging future movements in institutions, these countries are the most likely to see upcoming declines. The aforementioned political economy model implies that these findings are the result of complexities involved in the interaction between state capacity and different dimensions of economic liberalization.

Potential determinants of research output: comparing economics and business

ABSTRACTThis article uses cross-country unbalanced panel data of up to 146 countries from 1996–2015 to be the first study to identify potential determinants of a country’s relative research output in Economics versus Business. This identification is important for students, professionals, universities, university departments, and research-funding agencies facing choices between profiles oriented towards economics and business. Consider the following concrete example. The finding that some distinct countries’ characteristics hinder Economics relative to Business research is valuable information for a prospective professional when choosing her career path. We do a thorough literature review to single out country characteristics having the potential to determine the flourishing of economics research vis-à-vis business research and come out with the following three hypotheses: higher policy-related data availability, higher income inequality, and lower ethnic fractionalization relatively favour economics. The regressions’ results confirm these hypotheses, and the findings are robust to two alternative fixed effects specifications, three alternative definitions of economics and business, two alternative measures of research output (publications and citations), the inclusion of meaningful control variables, and the consideration of developed and developing countries. Yet, the association between ethnic fractionalization and relative research output is limited to developing countries.

Legal Disagreement

Individuals within the same jurisdiction often have different perceptions of the legal system, a phenomenon we call legal disagreement. Cross-country analyses of legal institutions generally ignore this kind of within-country variation. This article defines the concept of legal disagreement, identifies its potential causes and consequences, and shows that it can be measured using data from cross-country surveys. We argue that legal disagreement is likely to be caused by differences in individuals’ sources of information about the legal system, how the system treats cases of a given type, or how individuals process legal information, all of which may be related to differences in social position. We also suggest that understanding why individuals disagree about legal systems is valuable for several reasons, particularly when the disagreement reflects systematic differences in beliefs across people in different social positions. We use data from World Justice Project population surveys to create quantitative measures of legal disagreement for 128 countries or jurisdictions. We identify correlations between legal disagreement and measures of its potential causes and consequences, such as perceptions of discrimination and ethnic fractionalization. We also provide evidence that those variations are driven by differences in perceptions that track differences in gender, financial well-being, and class.

Comparing the Determinants of Worldwide Homicide and Terrorism

Over the past two decades, the study of terrorism has been increasingly integrated into mainstream criminology. Like other types of criminal behavior, terrorism can be divided into etiology (an emphasis on “breaking laws”) and criminal justice (an emphasis on “making laws” and “reacting toward the breaking of laws”). Moreover, like the study of crime, the study of terrorism is inherently multidisciplinary. Nevertheless, terrorism differs from more common forms of crime in fundamental ways: Terrorist perpetrators, unlike common criminals, rarely see themselves as criminal, often seek rather than eschew publicity, and often have broader political goals. Despite similarities and differences, we could identify little prior research that has directly compared the determinants of terrorism and more ordinary types of crime. In this article, we create large cross-national datasets on homicides and terrorist attacks and then compare the effects of a set of common economic, political, and social variables on each. We find a good deal of similarity in the determinants of the two types of violence. Both homicide and terrorism are more common in countries with high GDP, high percent urban, high ethnic fractionalization, and in countries moving toward democratization. Both homicide and terrorism are low in countries experiencing high globalization. Although homicides are more common in countries experiencing high levels of inequality and poverty, neither of these two variables is significantly associated with terrorist attacks. We discuss the implications of the findings for theory, policy, and future research.

An empirical analysis of economic growth in countries exposed to coastal risks: Implications for their ecosystems

Using a novel database on countries exposed to coastal risks (CR), this paper estimates an augmented neoclassical growth model that encompasses eight other new growth models. To account for uncertainty related to the number of models and choice of growth determinant proxies, we use a Bayesian averaging of classical estimates (BACE) approach. A preliminary examination of the data reveals that a country that faces coastal risks is likely to be a former British colony characterized by a common law legal framework, a parliamentary political system, a high degree of international trade openness, little language and ethnic fractionalization, a low level of public sector corruption, and a high rate of fertility. The BACE-based model selection procedure shows that, in CR countries, the growth determinant proxies typically used in the neoclassical, macroeconomic policy, natural resources, and institutions theories are significantly correlated with growth. These results suggest two implications related to these countries’ coastal ecosystems. First, because they are heavily dependent on natural resources and have high fertility rates, these countries might seek short-term economic gains at the expense of deterioration in their ecosystems. Second, these countries’ good institutions and low levels of ethnic division might be conducive to sustainable management of these ecosystems.

A historical perspective on informal institutional and international entrepreneurship

In this paper, a historical perspective is taken to investigate the variations in institutional and international entrepreneurship that occur throughout Africa. Drawing on the institutional theory of international entrepreneurship, we introduce ethnic fractionalization as an informal institution that influences new venture internationalization in African countries. Further, we identify the historical traumatic shock exerted by the epidemic disease spread by tsetse flies as the driver of the relationship between ethnic fractionalization and new venture internationalization. Based on a sample of 33,621 firm-year observations covering 40 African countries, Our empirical findings provide important insights into international entrepreneurship in Africa and offers a theoretical extension into the historical origins of informal institutions.

Ethnic Fractionalization and Informal Entrepreneurship: An Institutional Logics Perspective

Ethnic Fractionalization and Informal Entrepreneurship: An Institutional Logics Perspective

Do Failed or Weak States Favor Resident Terrorist Groups’ Survival?

Employing two alternative measures of state failure, we investigate how state weakness influences resident terrorist groups’ survival. Theoretically, state failure favors resident terrorist groups’ survival, while state territorial control fosters resident groups’ termination until some control threshold. Empirically, we uncover a robust negative relationship between a country’s weakness and its control of terrorism through the lens of the resident terrorist groups’ survival prospects. The discovered relationship withstands a host of robustness tests – e.g., alternative estimates and samples. We apply an instrument designed to address endogeneity concerns. In particular, our novel instrument for failed states consists of the interaction between natural disasters and ethnic fractionalization. As a state’s percentage of territorial control increases, resident terrorist groups are more prone to ending until some threshold control percent. Our analysis can guide counterterrorism policy by exploiting the nuanced theoretical determinants identified here that foster resident groups’ termination in failing states.