Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions
| Title: | Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions |
| Author: |
Baqir, Reza; Easterly, William; Alesina, Alberto
Note: Order does not necessarily reflect citation order of authors. |
| Citation: | Alesina, Alberto, Reza Baqir, and William Easterly. 1999. Public goods and ethnic divisions. Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(4): 1243-1284. |
| Full Text & Related Files: |
alesina_publicgoods.pdf (10.83Mb; PDF) 
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| Abstract: | We present a model that links heterogeneity of preferences across ethnic groups in a city to the amount and type of public goods the city supplies. We test the implications of the model with three related data sets: U. S. cities, U. S. metropolitan areas, and U. S. urban counties. Results show that the shares of spending on productive public goods—education, roads, sewers and trash pickup—in U. S. cities (metro areas/urban counties) are inversely related to the city's (metro area's/county's) ethnic fragmentation, even after controlling for other socioeconomic and demographic determinants. We conclude that ethnic conflict is an important determinant of local public finances. |
| Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/003355399556269 |
| Terms of Use: | This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA |
| Citable link to this page: | http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4551797 |
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Peer reviewed scholarly articles from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University
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