New WP out titled, "Public Goods, and Nested Subnational Units: Diversity, Segregation, or Hierarchy?” co-authored with @sumitm, Deepak and Naveen:
dyson.cornell.edu/faculty-resear… 1/n
dyson.cornell.edu/faculty-resear… 1/n
Using census data from ~ 600,000 Indian villages and caste as the axis of stratification, we show that public goods are determined through mutually enforcing channels of diversity, segregation and hierarchy. 2/n
Existing work on diversity-public goods ignores spatial distribution of ethnic groups. We know of ethnic enclaves, ghettos, and ethnic favoritism, but often ignored in empirical political economy scholarship. 3/n
We bring it together and provide a framework of public good provisioning within nested administrative structures. 4/n
All boxes (say sub-district) in Fig 1 have same diversity, while local segregation (say, in villages) differ. In fig 2, segregation is the same across 2 boxes, but not group dominance different (historical hierarchy). Most papers ignore this local variation. 5/n
This is how it looks for India's ~ 5000 sub-districts. We use these to estimate the joints of effect of diversity, segregation and hierarchy. 6/n
Main findings:
1. Local diversity not bad for public goods.
2. Greater share of SCST, diversity has +ve effect association with public goods only if the subdistrict has OTH majority
2. Greater share of SC/ST, lower public good incidence --> hierarchy salient
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1. Local diversity not bad for public goods.
2. Greater share of SCST, diversity has +ve effect association with public goods only if the subdistrict has OTH majority
2. Greater share of SC/ST, lower public good incidence --> hierarchy salient
7/n
This is one in the series of papers in the diversity-development project. Comments and criticism most welcome!
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Sorry, the co-author is @sumitrmishra. Sorry Sumit :)
