On 13th January 2020, the research cell organized a lecture delivered by Dr. Andaleeb Rahman on his working paper on the "Ethnic - Geographic Continuum".
The economic-political hypothesis often assumed to hold true is the notion that 'heterogenous diversity is an impediment to development'. There have been influential empirical works to support the same, such as Easterly and Levine, 1997 on the ethnic fragmentation in Sub-Saharan Africa and Alesina et. al., 1999 on how spending on public goods is lower in cities with greater ethnic fragmentation.
However, criticisms abound. Firstly, it is difficult to measure diversity. One must factor in the fact that the detrimental effects of diversity are not only based on historical factors but also on the tangible economic issues the community faces. "History is the legacy of economic development'.
Issues of fitting individuals into ethnic boxes also abound. Often we may have to rely on subjective definitions based on the question "What is your identity?". Rahman argues that one must be mindful of such identity prevalence when delving into the diversity-debit debate.
Rahman argues that pst empirical literature hasn't paid enough heed to the analysis of scale, both geographically as well as ethically. He develops the framework of analysis, as depicted above.
Fractionalization refers to the probability that two random individuals chosen have different ethnic and geographic characterizations. While Polarization refers to the Esteban Ray, 1994 definition.
Rahman's results show that diversity had a negative effect to average luminosity and growth. This would seem to suggest that diversity would have a negative effect on the economy. However, Rahman argues that this is based on subjective classification and the use of metrics. As the unit of analysis changes, or as the metric used changes, the results also change. Thus the diversity-debit versus diversity-dividend arguments are statistical artifacts determined by What, How, and Where diversity is measured.
Comments