Ethnic diversity and economic development with spatial segregation

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Economics Letters

Abstract

We revisit the negative association between ethnic diversity and development to show how the diversity-development association is conditional on spatial segregation. We introduce a new census-scale micro-dataset from the Indian state of Karnataka ( = 36.5 million rural residents). Using the first-ever spatially explicit enumeration and coding of endogamous Indian caste groups (jatis), we develop a multi-group metric for measuring local spatial segregation. We find that diversity is a bane for development only when it is also accompanied by high levels of spatial segregation. Our results contribute to the emerging research on the implications of inter-group contact and spatial proximity for economic outcomes.

Publication Date

7-12-2022

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

Vol.222

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