DP5112 Peripheral Diversity and Redistribution

Author(s):	Klaus Desmet, Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín, Shlomo Weber
Publication Date:	June 2005
Keyword(s):	linguistic diversity, polarization, redistribution
JEL(s):	D60, D74, H50, Z10
Programme Areas:	Public Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=5112

This paper investigates the effect of ethnolinguistic conflict on redistribution. The analysis focuses on the conflict arising between ?peripheral? minority groups and a dominant ?centre?. We propose an index of linguistic conflict that (i) encompasses both diversity and polarization, and (ii) accounts for the distance between languages. Our results suggest that linguistic diversity is a better predictor of redistribution than linguistic polarization. We also find that incorporating linguistic distances improves the predictive power of our conclusions.