The Origins of Ethnolinguistic Diversity: Theory and Evidence by Stelios Michalopoulos :: NEUDC 2007 Papers :: Northeast Universities Development Consortium Conference :: Center for International Development at Harvard University (CID)

This research examines theoretically and empirically the economic origins of cultural diversity shedding new light on the emergence of ethnolinguistic fractionalization. Constructing detailed data on the distribution of land quality across regions and countries, the empirical analysis, conducted at various levels of aggregation, establishes that variation in regional land quality has contributed signi…cantly to the emergence and persistence of ethnic diversity. The study suggests that di¤erences in land quality across regions led to the emergence of region speci…c human capital. Population mixing was limited in regions characterized by heterogeneous land endowments, leading to the formation of localized ethnicities and languages, e¤ectively producing a wider ethnolinguistic spectrum. The empirical analysis also documents the impact of European colonization both through the drawing of the borders and the active manipulation of the ethnicities in the colonized world. This research contributes to an understanding of the emergence and spatial distribution of ethnicities and constitutes a …rst step towards distinguishing between the natural, geographically driven, versus the arti…cial, man-made, components of contemporary ethnic diversity. Such distinction has novel implications for the causal impact of ethnic diversity on economic outcomes and the di¤usion of development within and across countries as well as ethnic groups. Keywords: Ethnic Diversity, Geography, Technological Progress, Population Mixing, Colonization. JEL classi…cation Numbers: O11, O15, O33, O40, J20, J24. I am indebted to Oded Galor for his constant advice and mentorship. Roland Benabou, Andrew Foster, Ioanna Grypari, Peter Howitt, Nippe Lagerlof, Ashley Lester, Ross Levine, Glenn Loury, Ignacio PalaciosHuerta and David Weil provided valuable comments. I would like also to thank the participants at the NBER Summer Institute 2007 on Income Inequality and Growth, and the seminar participants at Brown University, University of Copenhagen, University of Gothenburg and Warwick for the useful discussions. Lynn Carlsson’s ArcGis expertise proved of invaluable assistance. Financial support from the Watson Institute’s research project "Income Distribution Across and Within Countries" is gratefully acknowledged.