Does ethnic diversity affect public goods provision? Evidence from boundary reform of local governments

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Takeshi Miyazaki
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Public Goods Provision

The effect of regional income inequality and social diversity on the provision of local public goods in Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
Matondang Elsa Siburian
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Equal Access ◽  
Local Public Goods ◽  
Policy Recommendation ◽  
Social Diversity ◽  
Public Goods Provision ◽  
Regional Income ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Regional Income Inequality

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantify the effects of regional income disparity and social diversity on local public goods delivery in Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach Using Indonesian provincial data over the period 2001–2014 and by way of System GMM, this paper circumvents endogeneity and persistence of key variables over time which may bias the estimated impact of the critical variables. Findings The result provides no significant evidence on the influence of regional income inequality on the provision of local public goods. The result reveals that ethnic diversity is associated with the more extensive provision of local public goods. A large difference in preferences toward public goods provision in a fragmented society such as Indonesia forces the local government to deliver a greater mixed of public goods to accommodate various preferences for public goods and ensure that each group has equal access to public goods. Political fragmentation within an ethnically heterogeneous society also encourages local politicians to provide a larger provision of public goods to form an inter-ethnic coalition to gain local political access. Practical implications The significant effect of ethnic diversity on public goods provision implies a set of policy recommendation for Indonesian Government in order to maintain peace within the country. The central government should establish a clear-cut standard of local public goods provision for local governments to ensure that that anyone has equal access to public goods regardless of ethnicity. This will mitigate the possibility of ethnic conflict in an ethnically plural society. Originality/value This paper extends its analysis using both fractionalization and polarization indexes to measure the social diversity in Indonesia to obtain a comprehensive knowledge regarding the influence of ethnic diversity on the public good provision. This paper proposes a set of policy recommendation for Indonesian Government to manage the effect of social diversity on the provision of local public goods. To the author’s knowledge, this has never been done before for Indonesia. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2018-0661

Economic versus Cultural Differences: Forms of Ethnic Diversity and Public Goods Provision

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (4) ◽  
pp. 644-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATE BALDWIN ◽  
JOHN D. HUBER
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Public Goods Provision ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Empirical Tests ◽  
Group Inequality ◽  
Cross National

Arguments about how ethnic diversity affects governance typically posit that groups differ from each other in substantively important ways and that these differences make effective governance more difficult. But existing cross-national empirical tests typically use measures of ethnolinguistic fractionalization (ELF) that have no information about substantive differences between groups. This article examines two important ways that groups differ from each other—culturally and economically—and assesses how such differences affect public goods provision. Across 46 countries, the analysis compares existing measures of cultural differences with a new measure that captures economic differences between groups: between-group inequality (BGI). We show that ELF, cultural fractionalization (CF), and BGI measure different things, and that the choice between them has an important impact on our understanding of which countries are most ethnically diverse. Furthermore, empirical tests reveal that BGI has a large, robust, and negative relationship with public goods provision, whereas CF, ELF, and overall inequality do not.

Ethnic Diversity and Public Goods Provision

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 685-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soomi Lee ◽  
Dongwon Lee ◽  
Thomas E. Borcherding
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Public Goods Provision

Ethnic Diversity and Ethnic Discrimination: Explaining Local Public Goods Provision

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (10) ◽  
pp. 1351-1383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Lee
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Local Public Goods ◽  
Public Goods Provision ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Local Problems ◽  
Using Data

Numerous studies have found that ethnic diversity is negatively associated with the provision of local public goods. However, these accounts neglect both the strong role of central institutions in the provision of many “local” public goods and the frequently positive correlation between diversity and the presence of less politically powerful ethnic groups. These factors suggest that existing diversity findings may be explained in some cases by central governments discriminating against areas inhabited by less powerful groups. This hypothesis is tested using data in village-level public goods provision in Northern India, supplemented by data on service provision in Kenyan villages and American cities. While there is evidence that the presence of socially powerful groups is positively associated with service provision, evidence for the diversity hypothesis is weak. The results suggest that failures of public services in diverse areas may reflect larger inequalities within the political system rather than local problems in cooperation.

Ethnic Segregation and Public Goods: Evidence from Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
YUHKI TAJIMA ◽  
KRISLERT SAMPHANTHARAK ◽  
KAI OSTWALD
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Ethnic Segregation ◽  
Public Goods Provision ◽  
Ethnic Fractionalization ◽  
Disaggregated Data ◽  
Local Segregation

This article contributes to the study of ethnic diversity and public goods provision by assessing the role of the spatial distribution of ethnic groups. Through a new theory that we callspatial interdependence, we argue that the segregation of ethnic groups can reduce or even neutralize the “diversity penalty” in public goods provision that results from ethnic fractionalization. This is because local segregation allows communities to use disparities in the level of public goods compared with other communities as leverage when advocating for more public goods for themselves, thereby ratcheting up the level of public goods across communities. We test this prediction on highly disaggregated data from Indonesia and find strong support that, controlling for ethnic fractionalization, segregated communities have higher levels of public goods. This has an important and underexplored implication: decentralization disadvantages integrated communities vis-à-vis their more segregated counterparts.

scholarly journals Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision? An Experimental Approach

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Habyarimana ◽  
Macartan Humphreys ◽  
Daniel N. Posner ◽  
Jeremy M. Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Public Goods Provision

scholarly journals Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?

2007 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES HABYARIMANA ◽  
MACARTAN HUMPHREYS ◽  
DANIEL N. POSNER ◽  
JEREMY M. WEINSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Strategy Selection ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Public Goods Provision ◽  
Weak Evidence ◽  
Experimental Games ◽  
Selection Mechanisms ◽  
The Impact

A large and growing literature links high levels of ethnic diversity to low levels of public goods provision. Yet although the empirical connection between ethnic heterogeneity and the underprovision of public goods is widely accepted, there is little consensus on the specific mechanisms through which this relationship operates. We identify three families of mechanisms that link diversity to public goods provision—what we term “preferences,” “technology,” and “strategy selection” mechanisms—and run a series of experimental games that permit us to compare the explanatory power of distinct mechanisms within each of these three families. Results from games conducted with a random sample of 300 subjects from a slum neighborhood of Kampala, Uganda, suggest that successful public goods provision in homogenous ethnic communities can be attributed to a strategy selection mechanism: in similar settings, co-ethnics play cooperative equilibria, whereas non-co-ethnics do not. In addition, we find evidence for a technology mechanism: co-ethnics are more closely linked on social networks and thus plausibly better able to support cooperation through the threat of social sanction. We find no evidence for prominent preference mechanisms that emphasize the commonality of tastes within ethnic groups or a greater degree of altruism toward co-ethnics, and only weak evidence for technology mechanisms that focus on the impact of shared ethnicity on the productivity of teams.

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